


Forget Me Not

by Triddlegrl



Series: Batman Verse [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Batman comics fusion, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Blaine is Batman, DC comics - Freeform, Dark!Kurt, Kurt is Poison Ivy, M/M, Torture, Villain Kurt, violance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-08-15 09:11:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 77,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8050576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Triddlegrl/pseuds/Triddlegrl
Summary: Batman!Au. Blaine Anderson made two promises in his lifetime that changed everything. One was to hunt down the supernatural evils that stalk Lima City. The other was to love Kurt Hummel. He’s not sure which of those promises will kill him first.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the second fic to make it over here from my live journal. It is currently unfinished and sadly I have no idea when if ever I'll be able to come back to it. If you read the companion piece to this story "Things Remembered" it will give you a pretty clear idea of where these characters were headed and leave you with some closure. And if fortune allows me to come back and finish this story the wonderful thing about comic books and superheros is there's always room to switch things up ;)

Blaine often thought about the dark. He chose the bat as his symbol because it’s a creature of the night, highly accustomed to navigating the darkness. The bat is blind, much like people, but the difference between the bat and the average person is that the bat doesn’t depend on its eyes to see.  
Maybe the bat has it better.

Now people... people stumble around blind in the same world as the bats do, handicapped by their need to see everything. To believe it then of course it must be seen. And people want to believe that the world is good, that it is brightly lit with a few shadowed corners that the wise do not venture into. This is the unforgivable lie mothers whisper to their children, the delusional day dream people stuff in their heads to appease the panic of being locked in a dark room.

The truth is it’s very dark. The world operates in perpetual night, the darkest night the mind dares fathom. And people don’t, of course, dare to fathom it. There are some things that people just can’t bear to see- things too horrific for the mind to comprehend, too ugly for anyone with a scrap of hope in humanity to accept as possible without somehow dulling the blow.

People call that evil.

He has heard what the people say, what even Luis said the day they lowered his parents into the ground. They all said that it was evil that killed them, evil that sprang out of a dark corner and demanded first his father’s money and then his life, evil that tore screams from his mothers throat, evil that she clawed at, evil that punched through her; it evil that Blaine had run from in blind terror, his mother’s voice shrill like a whistle in his ears as he raced for the right to live.

They told him it was evil and that there was nothing he could have done for evil was something out of his control, out of everyone’s control. They told this lie not intentionally to do harm, but because horror is so much easier to swallow when it stems from evil, an evil that lurks in the dark waiting to devour without conscience. If evil doesn’t have a face, evil doesn’t have a mother or a father and evil of course knows no love, then evil cannot be loved and hope can go unchallenged.

Blaine lost the luxury of distance, the comfort of blindness, afforded to ordinary people when he’d seen the true face of evil the night his parents died. Not clearly, no- the desperate man wielding the gun punching holes into his father, clawing at his mother when she flew at him had moved in a blur- all of it had happened in what seemed the blink of an eye.

After the first shot he’d fallen over his father, as if his tiny body could shield him from further harm. Mother had screamed, throwing herself on the man, fighting with him, everything happening as swift as a flash of lightning while Blaine trembled over his father’s warm figure- willing for father to get up, get up get up!

Only… he never moved, and Blaine had to move away because tears had begun rolling into his mouth and they were bringing blood with them; he hated the taste. Through the roaring in his ears he’d heard mother scream his name, just his name and nothing else, but it lit a fire inside of him that pulled him up, made him go as if she’d screamed for him to run.

He’d been running as fast as he’d ever run in his life when he heard the second shot, the horrible crack of sound breaking and the snapping of life. He’d been running blindly expecting a third crack, a third bullet, seeing the blurry face of evil in his mind and almost wishing for it, but it never came.

Evil let him run, let him live to bury his parents, let him live to stare at his face in the mirror and see an echo of it etched there.

It’s a lie that evil doesn’t have faces, that it doesn’t have mothers and fathers, that it knows no love.

Blaine knew what most people could not even bring themselves to face. He knew that evil was not born: not some strange mutation, not some monster bred in the dark apart from the things that were good and dwell in light. Evil was made.

Staring at himself in the mirror the day he buried his parents he’d known truly what it felt like to hate someone. That mugger with the face of evil, who stole what he had no right to steal. Blaine hated him. He wanted to kill him and that was as simple as it got. He was eight years old and all the adults he knew thought it was the pain talking, that a boy so young could know nothing truly of hate or the thirst for vengeance. It was too ugly for people to think about, too dark, but Blaine had no choice but to think about it because he knew what they didn’t, that evil had so many faces.

One of them was his.

He could hurt people too. That was the day he’d decided that some people deserved to get hurt, that he had to find that man and stop him and all of the others like him because it could have ended there in the park that night, he could have hurt that man, but instead he’d been too scared. He’d run away and it hadn’t done anyone any good. That man had gotten inside him and destroyed him just the same.

Blaine’s older now and stronger. He has trained his whole life to be stronger, faster, and smarter than the criminals who plague the streets of Lima City and he has seen a great number of evils.

All of them have faces; all of them have mothers and fathers, and one of them…one of them he even loves.

The man he loves, he wasn’t born evil either. He was made.

———– June 23rd Blaine is 8 years old——––––

Blaine had never seen so many plants in his life, nor had he ever seen a woman quite like Dr. Nora Hummel who looked nothing like Blaine’s own mother and yet somehow managed to be one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen in his life. She towered above him much like her trees. Like them she was in constant motion, moving her hands and swaying slightly as if moved by a breeze, and yet somehow she achieved the stillness and peace of person at rest.

Blaine had never seen mother less than perfectly tailored in public. Dr. Hummel’s white lab coat on the other hand was stained with dirt and some other things he couldn’t place. Her long chestnut hair was neither glossy nor perfumed like mothers. Instead it looked messy, pulled back in a long pony tail with wispy tendrils escaping every which way as though her hair agreed with Blaine that the greenhouse was actually a jungle and no place for propriety. Things could happen in a place like this and Dr. Hummel looked like a woman whom exciting things happened to.

“Thomas! You made it. We were beginning to wonder if you’d changed your mind.” The tall woman greeted Blaine’s father brightly, extending her hands which father took in his own with a warm smile. Blaine thought her smile was very pretty even if she didn’t wear any lipstick like mother.

“It’s good to see you Thomas.”

“Likewise Nora.” Blaine watched father and the woman exchange polite kisses on cheeks and a brief hug with curiosity. Nora Hummel was a botanist father had told him. That meant she was a scientist who studied plants. She seemed like the type of person who would he thought as he watched her. She was entirely at home here in the green house- there was even a leaf stuck in her hair, just over her ear.

Mother’s hair was never out of place, but Blaine thought that he sort of liked this woman and her unkempt appearance. Mother always called him unkempt when he didn’t lace his shoes or button his blazer the right way. It was supposed to be bad, but when the woman smiled down at him Blaine smiled back widely.

“And of course you must be Blaine. I’ve heard a lot about you from your dad.”

Blaine nodded, smile still in place, even though he felt sort of shy the longer she smiled at him. He wondered if he was possibly in love. His mother and his father were in love and his best friend Wes Montgomery was always falling in love but Blaine had never been in love himself before. He didn’t know what it would feel like when it happened.

“Did you make some flowers for my mother?” He asked, biting his lip against the way his stomach felt funny, like ants were crawling over it or someone had let butterflies loose inside.

“Yep, your dad told me just how much your mom likes flowers. My team and I have designed a very special flower just for her. I really think she’ll like it,” Nora confirmed with a nod. Blaine really liked the name Nora, it was so pretty. He repeated it in his head a couple of times and thought it sounded a bit like music, something Blaine had always loved.

“Would you like to see what we’ve come up with, Thomas?” She asked straightening up to address his father again.

“Of course, of course,” Father quickly agreed, looking about as excited as Blaine felt. It was not every day you got to see a flower that someone made all by themselves. That meant there would be no other flower like his mother’s flower in the entire world. He was excited to go into the place where special flowers were made, see what sort of magic happened there and what tools were used, but it wasn’t to be.

“Blaine will have to stay out here I’m afraid. The lab isn’t really a place for children,” Nora informed his father apologetically and even though Blaine felt his hopes falling he knew better than to let it show. That was supposed to be rude.

“I understand.” Blaine smiled as brightly as he could manage through his disappointment. “I’ll wait out here for you, Father.”

“You’ll stay right here and you won’t touch anything?” Father asked with a slight frown. Blaine was very mature for his age but he was still only eight and this was an adult workplace. So even though Blaine was disapointed about the lab he wanted father to be proud that he could sit and follow instructions. He was about to promise to do just that when Nora's eyes brightened and she smiled like a woman with an idea. She was shaking her head, smiling at Blaine like she knew some secret that he suddenly really wanted to know too.

“Well, that wouldn’t be any fun, would it?” She asked, and Blaine wasn’t sure if it was polite to agree or not, but he nodded anyway eager for any alternative to sitting by himself. Both adults chuckled at him so Blaine thought maybe it was okay to be honest.

“Would you like a tour of the green house?” Nora asked. “You could see all of the different kinds of plants we grow here.”

Blaine nodded eagerly, because if he couldn’t go into the lab with Father at least getting to explore the jungle around them would be exciting.

"I thought so," she smiled at him again and straightened up. "You'll need a tour guide, and I happen to know an excellent one"

She led them to the back of the green house and opened a door to a brightly lit room filled with numerous tables covered in plants. Perched on a counter beside an industrial sized sink was one of the strangest looking boys Blaine had ever seen.

Blaine went to private school where all of the boys and girls dressed the same, and he didn’t have many friends besides Wes and this other boy David, but even then he knew what you were supposed to dress like out in public. It was summertime and it was hot but even so mother made Blaine wear nice trousers and a clean white shirt while out with father. This boy didn’t know how to dress himself at all.

His shorts did nothing to hide the brightly colored socks sticking out of a shiny pair of black and white converse on his feet. They matched the black and white bow tie around his neck. Under his suspenders he wore a white shirt like Blaine’s, only he’d rolled up the cuffs and stuck a Power Rangers sticker on his shoulder. There was also a big glossy bumblebee pinned to one of his suspender straps.

The boy sat balancing a potted plant in his lap and wielding a pair of scissors slightly too big for his small hands. His tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on carefully pruned the plant. Blaine wanted to move closer so that he could see better, but he didn’t want to break the other boys concentration and make him mad so he stayed put. The strange boy cut off a branch on the plant and smiled triumphantly down at it and Blaine thought he had a smile just like Nora’s.

“Hey sweetheart, would you like to help me out with something?” She asked. The boy looked up at them then, eyes lingering curiously on Blaine.

“This is Dr. Anderson's son Blaine," Nora introduced him. "Would you mind taking Blaine on a tour while I take Dr. Anderson to the lab?” She asked and the boy nodded. He set the plant aside carefully before climbing down off the counter.

“Just let me clean up first, okay,” he agreed excitedly and Blaine watched him stand on his tip toes to lean over the sink, carefully applying soap and giving his hands a good scrub under the water’s flow for a good minute before wiping his hands on his shorts.

“All done?” Nora asked as the boy approached them and when he nodded she leaned down to place a kiss on the crown of his head. Blaine noticed the boy’s hair was the same color as his mothers but unlike hers it was perfectly combed and it looked really soft and shiny, like one of his own mother’s silk pillows. As Nora moved aside and the two boys faced each other for the first time Blaine smiled at him. He deciding that strange as this boy might look, like his mother, he didn’t care and he might be in love with him too. Blaine was a boy who loved interesting things.

“Hi,” the boy said to Blaine, his round cheeks turning slightly pink.

“Hi,” Blaine replied eagerly, reaching for the other boys hand to shake just like his parents had taught him. “My name’s Blaine.” The other boy's mouth fell open just a little as he stared at Blaine’s hand, as if he’d never been offered a handshake before. Blaine felt kind of silly and wondered for a moment if no one had ever taught this boy how to shake hands. Then the boy giggled under his breath and took Blaine’s hand and he didn’t care so much anymore.

“I’m Kurt. Have you ever been in the green house before?” Blaine thought that Kurt was another name he liked.

“Nope, this is Blaine’s first time,” Kurt's mother answered for Blaine. “You’ll enjoy yourself. Kurt knows this place almost better than I do. Isn’t that right, Kurt?”

“Right. We’ll be fine mommy. Come on Blaine, I’ll show you all of the best parts.” Blaine didn’t know quite what to make of it when the other boy grabbed his hand and pulled him away from his father’s side without giving him a chance to say goodbye.

He didn't worry on it for long. What the small boy of eight discovered that day with his new friend was a joy and a wonder unlike anything he'd ever experienced before. It wasn’t that Blaine wasn’t usually a happy child; he was very happy. There was just something so exciting about the strangeness of the greenhouse. It was fun running off with Kurt with Kurt’s hand warm in his and slightly damp from its recent washing. His palms were really soft and Blaine liked the way his fingers felt between his. Exciting as the greenhouse was it was also very big and full of strange things that might have scared him if not for the solid grip of the other boy's hand in his.

Kurt lead them down marked paths and humidity pressed against them, the scents of citrus and flora washed over them as they left the ordinary and mundane far behind them and stepped into a wild world of possibility.

“That room we were in, that was the green room. It’s where my mom and I do a lot of replanting and sprucing while the plants are still young and stuff,” Kurt explained, gesturing with his head to the room they were quickly leaving behind them.

“And these over here lining the pathway these are abutilon x hybridum, only you can call them flowering maple because that’s easier, and those are cane-stemmed begonias.” Kurt pointed out the different flowers and trees as they went along, enthusiastically undertaking the role of tour guide.

Blaine listened intently and unlike in school he didn’t have to pretend interest. Kurt used big words sometimes that he didn’t understand, but he talked like what he was saying was something so important everyone should know about it. It made Blaine really want to know everything he knew.

“What do you call these?” He asked when Kurt paused in front of a row of tall flowers growing on thick pale green stems. The stems sported a cloud of tiny flowers with bright blue petals that Blaine found he really liked. Blue was one of his favorite colors after all.

“Anchusa capensis, the blue angel,” Kurt answered, lisping slightly over the words. He leaned down to press his face close to the bright flowers. “They’re summer forget-me-nots, only not really, they just look like them. They’re from Africa and they used to be my favorite.”

“What’s your favorite now?” Blaine asked, curious to know which of the strange and wonderful plants in this jungle Kurt thought were the very best. Kurt looked up from the flowers and Blaine thought for a still moment that they made his eyes look just as blue.

“Adenium obesum Miranda,” the boy shyly replied, his voice barely above a whisper, and Blaine smiled even though he had no idea what that was. His mothers name was Miranda and so he thought the flower must be a wonderful thing no matter what its look.

After they’d made their way through several more sections he asked Kurt the one thing he really wanted to know.

“So do you work here too?” He thought it would be a dream come true getting to work in a place like this.

“Blaine, I’m seven.” Kurt gave him a look that made Blaine feel kind of stupid but Kurt squeezed his hand and it made him feel better. “Of course I don’t work here. One day though, one day I’m going to be a botanist just like my mom.”

“Cool,” Blaine replied, because it really was. “I’m going to be a surgeon, just like my dad, but I think being a botanist would be much cooler.”

“Being a doctor doesn’t sound so bad. Is your dad good?”

“Uh huh. He’s the best doctor in the country, maybe the whole world even. He goes out of the country sometimes to perform special surgeries and stuff because he’s the best.”

“Your dad’s super rich right?” Kurt asked, leading Blaine down a path lined with towering trees. “My mom said he donated the money that helped make this place. That’s why we made him a special flower.”

“It’s for my mother,” Blaine nodded excitedly. “Father said the mayor’s having mom’s flower planted in the park today. It’s her birthday tonight and we’re going to the theater and then we’re going to the park and we’re going to surprise her.”

“Really?” Kurt eyes were bright and his smile really soft and big like mothers always got when father surprised her with flowers or told her she looked pretty that day. “That’s a great birthday present. He must really love her.”

“Of course he loves her. What else would he do, they’re married aren’t they?” Blaine asked in confusion. Truthfully he was a little offended that Kurt would assume anything else of his parents. Father and mother loved him and they loved each other no matter what, that was just the way it was.

“Not all married people love each other,” Kurt replied, tilting his nose up slightly in a way that made him seem even taller than he already was. Blaine wasn’t going to back down though.

“Don’t your mother and father love each other?” He asked, crossing his arms and Kurt put his arms on his hips and positively knifed Blaine with his eyes. His eyes didn’t look so blue now... maybe green or grey, Blaine couldn’t tell for sure but it was amazing to him, that someone could have eyes that changed with their mood.

“Of course they do, but that doesn’t mean all married people do,” Kurt was saying and Blaine's scowl deepened.

“Well why not?! Why’d they get married then if they didn’t love each other?”

“Well they love each other at first, and then they just… I don’t know… they just don’t anymore. Haven’t you ever heard of divorce?”

The idea that his mother and his father could one day just not love each other, or not love him for that matter was just too much for Blaine to really understand. He knew a couple of kids in his class whose parents were divorced but to him it was just a word. It had nothing to do with him, his family or the wonderful life they had together.

“Of course I have. I just think it’s dumb. If you love someone you love them and that’s that.”

“Oh really?” Kurt asked one of his eyebrows arching high. “Even if they did something that was really bad, even if they made you cry?”

Blaine wasn’t so sure anymore, but he wasn’t about to tell Kurt that. He nodded, tilting his chin up and standing up straight like father always did when he wanted everyone to know he was serious about something. Blaine did bad things. Sometimes he made mother and father really mad at him and once he even broke Mother’s favorite string of pearls and she cried, but no matter what they always loved him. That was the way it was supposed to be!

“Really, Kurt. If your father ever stopped loving your mother well then…then I’d marry her and I’d love her no matter what.” Blaine didn’t know if it was appropriate to tell another boy you’d marry his mother but he thought that maybe he’d like to.

Then he could spend the rest of his life here in the room that looked and smelled like a jungle. And Kurt would be here too and maybe they could shuck off their shoes and Blaine could roll up his itchy pants and they could climb one of the palm trees and hide out up there. He’d like that, and Kurt would probably like it too. He looked at home there just like his mother did, like he wasn’t a human boy but some fairy creature out of a story book.

Kurt frowned at him and poked his pointer finger into Blaine’s shoulder, prodding him sharply as he said, “No! You can’t love my mom because she’s my mom. You have to love someone our age, someone who isn’t perfect or it doesn’t count.”

“Okay okay, don’t poke,” Blaine relented, though he didn’t really want to. He really would like to live in the greenhouse with Kurt. Maybe…maybe he could. Blaine didn’t know if you could marry a boy, maybe it wasn’t something people did and it didn’t count either.

“Do boys count?” He asked tentatively and Kurt’s finger curled as he brought it up to his mouth to bite the knuckle. He ducked his head, but Blaine could still see the way his cheeks flushed. It made his stomach start squirming. “Some boys marry boys don’t they?”

“Yes” Kurt said quietly, smiling shyly at Blaine. “Some of them do.”

“Well then I’ll marry you, Kurt” he decided, “and even if you did bad things, even if you made me cry I’d love you no matter what.” Blaine grinned triumphantly at the solution. It all seemed very simple to him and even Kurt couldn't come up with a reason why this wasn't in fact the best plan. Blaine could show Kurt that love was easy when you did it right and they would never have to leave the greenhouse ever if they didn't want to.

“Really?” Kurt asked in wonder. “Because…I’d like that.”

“Really.” Blaine nodded eagerly because he’d really like it too. He’d like it if he could stay in the jungle here with Kurt forever but he already knew Father wouldn’t let him. So they would just have to grow up first.

“Do you promise? Don’t promise if you don’t mean it.” Kurt’s eyes had gotten intense in a way that made Blaine go still inside, scared and exhilarated all at once.

“I promise,” he swore and he felt bigger inside just for saying it.

“Good,” Kurt replied something very final about the way he said it. The pale boy bit his lip, staring at Blaine hopefully as though if he wished it hard enough they would suddenly be grown up and sure of what was supposed to come next. But they weren’t and Blaine was getting nervous just standing there feeling stupid.

Kurt watched him with a thoughtful frown on his face, and then he looked worried. Blaine didn’t want him to be worried but before he could do anything about it Kurt had taken a deep breath and leaned forward. Before Blaine could blink there was a mouth pressed against his. It felt weird and their noses mashed together in an uncomfortable way. Kurt's lips were soft and dry. They made Blaine’s palms sweat and his heart start to race which he found to be something of a scary feeling. It was over and done in a second, Blaine was pretty sure kisses were supposed to last longer, but his heart was pounding so hard he was kind of glad it hadn’t because he’d probably have died.

“Why d-did you kiss me?” He stammered, even more unsure now of what he was supposed to do. Maybe this made them boyfriends. He’d never had a boyfriend even though his friend Wes had already had three girlfriends. But Wes never actually kissed any of them! Blaine wasn’t sure if Wes ever did anything with them except sit next to them at lunch and trade silly bands.

“Because you promised, and I don’t want you to forget,” Kurt answered. His face was pink and his eyes watched Blaine’s nervously as if he was very afraid he'd done something wrong. "Nobody forgets their first kiss.”

Kurt seemed so sure of that and somehow Blaine knew he wouldn’t.

"Okay. I won't. I won't forget you ever."

He was confidant that he could go his whole life and never forget the boy standing in front of him.

Blaine never did... though later he would wish desperately that he could.


	2. Chapter 2

When he’d been little the greenhouse had been Kurt’s favorite place to be. It was a good thing too as it was also his mother’s favorite place and she never let a little thing like pregnancy or a toddler getting underfoot deter her from her work. Nora Hummel always said that the botanical garden was the dream she’d always wanted and that her only son Kurt was the dream she’d never known how much she needed.The botanical garden was not just his mother’s workplace. It was a very real piece of who she was and she’d made it a part of Kurt too. He had never had a sibling, he might have liked one if only to have someone to talk to, but he didn’t really _need_ one because he had mom, dad, and the plants.  
  
Believe it or not, nature had a lot to say if you wanted to listen but he still got lonely at times . When he had been a child it hadn’t mattered as much but he was thirteen now,  not such a kid anymore, and his imagination couldn’t fill up all the holes like it used to. It wasn’t that he was unhappy or anything.  It had been him, his parents and the plants for as long as he could remember and he loved his life. He’d just like it if he could be a little bit more like everyone else on top of things.  
  
Maybe things would be better if he wasn’t one of the smartest kids in class, so maybe school would be a little more interesting. Maybe things would be better if his voice dropped like all the other boys- except maybe he could skip that awful up and down seesaw part that made all of his peers sound like they were walking around with god awful cracks in their pipes- and then that would be one less thing to make him odd.

Maybe if he had a friend, someone who didn’t care about his voice or what clothes he wanted to wear, all of that other stuff wouldn’t matter. Instead of heading straight to the lab after school he could go to the mall, maybe even look for a new outfit to wear to school the next day, something that might catch the eye of some debonair young man. Only _he_ didn’t exactly go to Kurt’s school so there was no way he’d actually see it even if Kurt did bother dressing up for him- and that’s a whole other problem for Kurt.

Maybe if Kurt didn’t crush on boys instead of girls-and maybe if he hadn’t been crushing on a boy so far out of his reach never mind his league for over half a decade- life would look a whole lot better than it did now.

Right now with Mom pacing the length of her office arguing heatedly with the chairman of the Botanical Society things just felt really bleak.

“I know the money isn’t there right now Gary, but we just can’t give up. I’ve put my entire life into this place. We….” his mother trailed off and Kurt heard the electronic sounding murmur of her boss’s voice coming through the phone.

He knew the situation. He was his mothers most active partner in her crusade to bring in more donors to support their research. For someone who never got invited to any Kurt certainly knew how to throw a party. If he wasn’t so keen on going into some form of botany he’d have considered being an event planner. Unfortunately for them however no matter how well planned, or well attended, the benefit dinner they could never quite seem to draw in the support they needed. The thing that really sucked about it was that none of it would have been a problem if their biggest supporter Anderson Enterprises hadn’t withdrawn their support three four years ago.  
  
Do you know how hard it is being hopelessly in love with one of the people responsible for ruining your life?

Kurt’s phone vibrated in his pocket a moment later, distracting him from his mother’s conversation. He pulled it out to find that he’d received a text from this girl in his science class, Mercedes Jones. They’d been assigned as lab partners that week.

 **MJones:** You busy?

Kurt arched a brow at this and quickly thumbed out a reply.

 **Kurt Hummel:**  Don’t worry; I could do our assessment paper in my sleep. I’ll finish it and all you’ll need to do is sign your name to the parts I give you.

Kurt might only be thirteen but he was already a cynic. Group projects of any sort either meant Kurt did all the work alone or the others talked around him making plans and generally just seeming to forget that he existed.

“Thomas was one of our biggest supporters! If you could just arrange for me to talk with Philip for five minutes I’m sure I could…” his mother’s voice drifted over to him and Kurt looked up from his phone. Philip Morris was the CEO of Morris Enterprises and Blaine Anderson’s uncle, which unfortunately for them meant that he had control of all of his brother-in-laws assets until Blaine came of age. To put it in a nut shell four years ago Philip had decided he didn't think they were quite the worthy cause that his sister’s husband had.

Kurt’s phone vibrated again in his palm and he jumped, startled.

 **MJones:** Do you think I can’t write my own paper or something white boy? I got this. Are you busy or not?

 **Kurt Hummel:** Why?

If she wasn’t worried about their homework then why was she even bothering talking to him? People usually didn't.

 **MJones:** Going to the mall with my bro. Wanted to know if you want to come. We could get you some men's sweaters.

 **Kurt Hummel:** I told you fashion has no gender.

 **MJones:** Yeah well it’s having a sale at Claire’s. I noticed you like pins. That rhino one you wore last week is pretty cool. I want to get something like it. Help me pick?

 **Kurt Hummel:**  You knew who I was last week?

 **MJones:** Kurt everybody knows who you are.

 **Kurt Hummel:** Then how come the only people who talk to me of their own free will are bullies?

 **MJones:** Well I’m talking to you and I’m not a bully. My bro’s leaving pretty soon. You coming?

Kurt didn’t know what to do. It was funny in a sad way that just a few minutes ago he’d been dying for something like this and now that it had come he was too scared to do anything about it. He glanced up at his mother who was still pacing at the other end of the office on the phone. He really should be here for her when she was done. She was bound to be upset from the call and she hadn’t been eating or sleeping well. He should make sure she at least ate something.

 **Kurt Hummel:** I’m sorry, I can’t today.

 **MJones:** *Sad face* Okay.

Kurt didn’t think about it, he just did it. His thumbs were flying across his key pad without any direction from him.

 **Kurt Hummel:** You ever been to the Lima City Botanical Gardens? I can hook you up with a free tour.

~*~  _Blaine is 14 going on 15_ ~*~

Blaine had been having the same dream since he was eight. It started out in an empty street leading into a park, brightly lit by the soft glow of street lights. There was laughter, his and mothers, and father’s gentle hum as he avoided answering mother’s inquisitive questions. There was a flash of color as mother’s bright red lips split in a smile, as she tossed her head and black curls spun… and then Blaine would spin and thunder would growl like a hungry beast all around them. Father always yelled first, loud and abrupt, only to be cut off as he crashed to the ground and disappeared. When he’d turn and reach for mother she wouldn’t be there but he could always hear the sound of her scream echoing around him as shrill as a train whistle.

The thunder would boom and lightning would crack open the sky. Rain would release from the dark sky, thick and red, covering his face and his hands. His mouth would open on a scream only he was never quite able to force any sound out. No mater how hard he tried to wail, to curse, to weep, his voice was gone and he was alone in the dark, staring into puddles of blood at a reflection of his face that was somehow unfamiliar. It would be his face but not his face.

Terrified at the unfamiliar face staring back at him and the blood red rain he would run until his legs burned, run and run, until the park melted away and became dense jungle- always a strangely familiar jungle.

The soil beneath his feet would be rich and warm, the foliage that brushed his face and arms cool and green. The air was always heavy and thick in his lungs and moisture would cling to his hair and skin. His sweat would wash away the blood and he’d know somewhere deep inside that he was no longer running away, but rather running towards something. He didn’t know what, he could never see it, but he knew the feeling it gave him. It made his blood hot, his heart pound, his hands ache with the need to press his sallow flesh against something alive with energy and warmth. His lungs burn with the need for breath.

And there… there would always be a flash of white as a bare figure would appear in the distance, a solitary nymph amongst the green and brown. Blaine’s insides would scream, the sweat on his brow would begin to cut as it oozed out his pores. He’d know that he must reach the fleeing figure or he would simply disappear, become a gray shade of a man who would never know life. Life was ahead, life could be reached if only he could…

Always Blaine would open his mouth to call out but still there would be no sound, no voice, no way to speak the name burning on his tongue. The figure would disappear in flashes of white, he would catch only glimpses of long limbs, the bright shine of sky in a pair of laughing eyes.

So Blaine would chase. He would run, run and run, and his heart would beat in time with the name that he could feel in his mouth but which would never take shape in his mind. One syllable. One steady sound.

There was always one desire.

Desire was all well and good in a dream, but Jeff Norsdon was flesh and blood and all too much a part of Blaine’s reality. They were sort of friends in the fact that they ran with the same crowd and were on the same track team. Blaine had been watching him for a few weeks. Not in a creepy stalker way- at least he hoped not- but definitely in a distracting way, a troubling way in light of everything Blaine was supposed to be thinking about.

Jeff and his new hair cut wasn’t one of them.

Blaine had known his purpose since he was eight and nothing had changed now that he was nearly fifteen. His plans were as solid as ever, his vendetta the life he lived; some might argue that was unhealthy but it was necessary if he wished to see success. If he was going to stride into the dark to meet the devil he had to be prepared, had to give it his all.

Blaine gave it gladly, but the trouble was that despite everything he was still just a kid. He might be the heir to a fortune, he might be the Lima City News favorite pet sob story, but he didn’t have any real power to change anything.

It used to frustrate him. It used to make him so mad that he got into fights with other boys- boys ten times his size- and he would swing his fists as if that fight could make up for the one fight that had truly mattered. He swore it over every bruise, he swore it over his blood, that one day the evil that stalked Lima City would be just a memory and no one was going to have to worry about walking into a park at night and having everything they loved ripped from them.

Luis had sat him down one day to bandage all his bruises and asked why,  if he was trying to get himself killed, he didn’t just walk blindfolded into the street and be done with it.

That’s when Blaine had decided that it wasn’t just enough to fly at the dark with fists flailing. Luis was right, that would only get him killed one day.  That was when he’d begun to prepare. Other boys took music lessons and joined athletic teams to broaden their horizons. Blaine Anderson took gymnastics, track and field, boxing, language courses,and strategy and analysis training, anything he thought would give him an edge over an enemy.

He might not have been born supernatural but his body and his mind were his instruments, his weapons to be honed, and Luis said those were all a man needed to be super. The goal was to be smarter, faster, and stronger than his enemies in every way so that when he wouldn’t be just some kid, then he could fight.

And that’s when he’d win.

So yeah, Blaine might only be fourteen but he had tons of important stuff to focus on and other boys really weren’t one of them.

For one thing Blaine had a girlfriend and several potentials. Women were hard enough to juggle as it was without added distractions. He knew of that he preferred men, he was honing his intellect towards brilliance after all. The fact that he’d been dreaming about chasing a naked boy since he was eight was kind of an impossible sign to miss. The girlfriends were simply strategy. The simple facts of the matter were that Blaine had been in the public eye since he was born and even more so since the night of his parents brutal murder. Heir to a massive fortune, son of influential people, and survivor of an unheard of tragedy, he was a ready made Barbara Walters special.

Every move Blaine made was watched and with what he planned to do with his future, and everything he still needed to do to prepare, that was dangerous. What he knew about people though was that if you planted an idea in their minds the initial idea would warp the way they saw everything else. If Blaine acted like a spoiled little rich boy the only thing people were going to see was in fact a spoiled little rich boy.

As far as everyone else knew Blaine Anderson was nothing but a skirt chasing (if not charming) dare devil, smart enough and sure to go far, but largely because others paved the way for him. Someone who was sure to amuse you but never someone to examine too closely. He's as shallow as a puddle that boy.

He’d worked hard to cultivate that image, and Jeff and his stupidly long legs could ruin that for him. Being gay wasn’t something he was ashamed of but other people were and other people would certainly care (namely his uncle). That was exactly what Blaine needed to avoid. Going public with his sexuality would make him even more of a point of interest for reasons that might not matter so much if he were normal. People would have something of weight to talk to him about, he'd be an 'leading voice' on hot social issues whether he wanted to be or not. People would want to know how he loved, who he loved and what he planned to do with said love even more so than if he were straight and had a dozen girls on his arm, because he was a person of importance and he could change things for people less important. People would expect things and people who expected things examined details.

Blaine was running laps along the track, holding back and letting a couple of the other guys take the lead. He’d joined the track team largely because he needed something to show his uncle to explain the frequent out of town trips and the expense of expensive muscle training equipment. He'd hired one of the best trainers in the world and he spent hours in his gym at home and sports was a ready excuse. This run, this was a cake walk, but holding back was the name of the game.

It frustrated his uncle Philip that Blaine insisted on studying under the best trainers and teachers the world had to offer and yet he excelled at nothing. He never failed, but he never came out first either. He was flat line average that Blaine.

“Look alive out there Anderson. This ain’t a stroll in the park!” Coach Valone hollered from the side lines and Blaine cleared his head of his many thoughts to flash the tall black man a big toothy grin as they passed him.

“Sorry coach,” he called back over his shoulder as he quickened his pace. Not enough to overtake Jeff but enough to appease Valone. Coach Valone blew the whistle signaling that this was to be their final lap, and Blaine’s heart leaped in his chest. This part he loved.

As Blaine came alongside him Jeff spared him a quick glance but kept his focus on his breathing and the track ahead of them. Blaine tried to do the same but he couldn’t help but be aware of the boy next to him. His face was flushed with exertion, his blond hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, and his feet made a rhythmic pounding sound on the track beneath them that Blaine found strangely arresting. He liked this part of the run, where it became not just an exercise but a race.

He looked forward to moments like these, when his blood coursed hard through his veins, when his muscles stretched and burned with strain, and sweat left a bitter taste on his lips. Because in moments like this everything was so physical, so solid, that there was no doubt in his mind that he existed. Blaine Anderson was alive and his body thrummed with adrenaline- and an unexplored something else- as his eyes were drawn back to the boy beside him despite his strong conviction.

He wondered if Jeff felt the way he did about the running, about living, and his eyes couldn’t help but follow the beads of sweat that trickled off of the other teens brow and down the side of his neck to disappear beneath the collar of his shirt. Blaine swallowed hard just as Jeff turned his head to look over at him again and this time their eyes held.

Blaine could feel his face flushing and he couldn’t help but smart a little inside at that. He was supposed to be the master of his own body but he couldn’t lie to himself. It wasn’t the run making his cheeks burn.

The other boy grinned, a spark of challenge in his eyes, and Blaine watched as Jeff winked and then took off increasing the distance between them.

So it was like that was it?

Blaine couldn’t fight back his smile as he ran to catch the other boy. Catching Jeff was easy; Blaine wasn’t anywhere close to tapping into the limits of his strength but he didn’t care so much about that.

The feeling was the important part.

~*~ _Kurt is 14_ ~*~

“Could you imagine having someone like Katy come to your birthday party?” Mercedes asked Kurt, reaching into the bowl of pretzels that lay between them on the bed. Kurt glanced up from the magazine he wasn’t actually paying any attention to in order to listen to the host of Pop Culture going on and on about the upcoming birthday bash of Lima City’s own heir to millions, Blaine Anderson.

Blaine was turning fifteen this week. Fifteen and the pictures of him flashing across the screen were all candid shots of him and these horribly dressed girls playing tonsil hockey. Seriously though, Kurt had to assume these girls got dressed in the dark every day. Either that or they _wanted_ to look easy. Apparently Blaine was the kind of guy who liked his women a little on the trashy side and wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he wasn’t drowning all his brain cells in beer that he wasn’t even old enough to drink.

Okay to be fair there were a couple of shots of him with friends and some from piano recitals, normal stuff like that, but still, it was perfectly apparent to him that Blaine Anderson had turned into a Noah Puckerman.

Kurt sniffed disdainfully and pretended interest in his magazine again.

“If I was going to have the birthday bash of the century and could get my favorite celebrity to come sing for me I’d invite Barbara, or Gaga, someone with class,” he replied and Mercedes rolled her eyes at him.

“What’s up with you today Kurt? Usually I can’t get you to shut up about all things Anderson. Haven’t you been in love with him since you were like two?” She asked, gesturing with a pretzel before popping it into her mouth.

“I was seven fyi and it wasn’t love. It was a stupid crush.” Kurt's cheeks flushed, curse his fair complexion. “I got over it, and clearly so did he if his friend Blondie McTits is anything to go by.”

“Are you seeing that dye job?” Mercedes cackled pointing at a teen girl who looked to have come right off an episode of Jersey Shore. “Do you think her boobs are real?”

“Please.” Kurt gave her a look as if to ask, ‘ _what do you think_ ’.

“Hey now, what is she 15, 16? My dad wouldn’t get me a boob job. That’s for sure.”

“That’s because your dad’s a nice normal dad. These girls live with robot check dispensers, not real parents,” Kurt responded with a snort and his friend cackled again for a moment.

“All I’m saying is that I think Blondie’s a front Kurt. You said he kissed you once.”

Oh here they go. Sometimes he regretted ever admitting to Mercedes that he’d been crushing hard on Blaine since he was seven. This was a subject Kurt definitely did not want to think about. It was pathetic to still have a crush on a guy you hadn’t talked to in years and Kurt could do without being pathetic thank you very much.

“I kissed _him_ Mercedes and I’d rather not-”

“Did he like it though?”  Mercedes talked over him and Kurt knew he wasn’t getting out of talking about this. She could be so relentless sometimes.

“I don’t know, we were kids. He probably thought it was some sort of game.”

“No offense or anything Kurt but that’s bull. My little brother Jerry would cut a bitch if some little boy put the moves on him and he’s only six. Seven ain’t too young to know. Did he say anything after?”

“What, after he promised to marry me and love me forever and ever? Please, this is ridiculous. Even if he did like it so what? We were children, Mercedes. Children. It didn’t mean anything. Blaine is clearly straight and-”

“Bi and maybe not even that,” Mercedes insisted and Kurt, finally having enough, whacked her with his magazine.

“Are you trying to get me to nurse some delusional crush? Is that it? You want me to die sad and alone waiting on Blaine Anderson to come save the day huh?” He whacked her playfully a few more times and laughing she rolled away from him, thrusting her arms up to protect herself from his attacks.  
.  
“No I’m trying to get you to lighten up white boy.” Mercedes admitted when Kurt tossed the magazine aside and allowed her to sit up. “You’ve been so down lately.”

Kurt could feel some of his good mood slipping away at his friend’s words. The thing about having a friend he was discovering was that he couldn’t get away with pretending like everything was good when it just plain wasn’t.

He drew his knees up to his chest and sighed.

“Mom’s cancer is getting worse I think, but she doesn’t want to even think about it. All she thinks about are the gardens.”

He swallowed thickly and admitted what he hadn’t yet even dared say aloud, what his mother refused to even consider.

“We’re going to lose them pretty soon.”

He couldn’t admit how scary it was having a mother who was sick. She had always said she lived for both her plants and her family, but when push came to shove Kurt didn’t think she’d last too much longer if Gary shut down the gardens.

“You haven’t been able to find more funding?” She asked and Kurt shook his head. She watched him a moment with concern, finally biting her lip and saying with a sigh, “Well I’d suggest writing to Anderson, because he’s sure got the money, but…all kidding aside who knows if he’ll even remember one meeting.”

“Two,” Kurt automatically corrected, lifting his head from his knees. Despite himself, something like hope was growing inside. He really shouldn’t even consider the idea. It was silly and it was presumptuous in the extreme but it was also _something_ and Kurt just really needed something right now.

“I’ve talked to him twice. Once in the greenhouse and  once at his parents funeral. I gave him flowers.”

~*~ _Blaine is 15_ ~*~

His hands hurt. He was used to bruises and aches after boxing, but this was bruises beyond the usual. Luis had had to ice them; he’d kept insisting that they call in a doctor but Blaine didn’t want anyone to come in and reduce the swelling and lighten the bruises. He needed those. They said what he could never say with his lips, what he couldn’t even piece together in his own mind. Blaine had gone to the gym and put himself through his paces. Not once, not twice, but again and again round after round until his whole body shouted what he didn’t have the balls to admit to himself.

He was a failure, and a coward, and he had been beaten. This time by his own plans, his own brilliant strategy. The knowledge had lit a fire inside his stomach and it kept burning refusing to be put out. He kept fueling it with anger and resentment, resentment that as usual was pointed mostly at himself and partly on his uncle.

He knew his bad relationship with Philip was in part his own fault. That was the damn strategy wasn’t it? He’d done everything to cultivate an appropriately rebellious and frivolous reputation for his age, earning his uncle's continued ire and obvious disdain. Was it fun knowing that his closest living relative thought he was a waste of space, a shame to his parents memory, a god damn good for nothing never going to get it right failure without a back bone in his body? Of course it wasn’t, but that was the name of the game, that was the sacrifice he had to make to ensure that he was the one who said check mate at the end of the game.

He gave himself up to the rouse gladly, he surrendered his rights to self  and accomplishment without ever looking back, and not once had he regretted it but this.... this one time he truly wanted something from Phillip, something important, his own efforts to make himself look stupid and careless had come back to bite him in the ass. Phillip wasn’t going to save the Botanical Gardens.

He said it was a lousy investment.

No amount of of argument  from Blaine would sway him and Blaine couldn’t even argue too loudly without Phillip wondering why he even cared. Blaine wasn’t the type of boy to care about things, everyone would said so and you’d never hear a protest pass his lips.

He let his body do the talking instead and now it was appropriately battered.

Blaine went out with his friends that night to try and get his mind off things but he couldn’t stop thinking about the letter in his pocket, the letter that he’d read so many times the creases were in danger of tearing the next time he opened it.

_Dear Blaine. You may not remember me…._

Oh but he did. Nobody forgets their first kiss. Kurt had been right about that. Kurt, a boy he hadn’t seen since he was eight years old, a teenager like him now and nearly grown. What did he even look like? Blaine wondered. One thing would be the same he knew. Those eyes would still be sky one minute and clouds the next. They would still be the brightest things Blaine had ever seen. He’d still see their likeness every night when he dreamed.

Blaine remembered Kurt alright, he remembered Nora Hummel and he remembered the both of them gazing at him with sad faces as he marched behind his parents coffins. He remembered standing to receive condolence after condolence wanting to run away from it all and never look back and how Nora had been the only one not to say anything to him. He remembered how she’d simply knelt and hugged him. She had stroked his back like the mother he would never have again and he’d started to cry.

She’d dried his cheeks, kissed his brow and stepped away, leaving him to grief that could not be cured by either expressions of sorrow or condolences. Kurt, Kurt had stepped forward and stared at him with eyes dark as storm clouds. Whatever pain was behind his eyes he’d kept to himself, extending instead a bushel of flowers in one hand. Their petals had been the richest red Blaine had ever seen. There had been white flecks in the deepest part of the blossom, he remembered, like snowflakes.

_“Adenium obesum Miranda. You can call them Miranda’s rose if that’s easier. When your daddy saw them he said that they were just right, because they smelled like her and were almost as pretty. They’re hers and I thought…I thought you’d like her to be with you right now. They’re yours now.”_

Blaine grimaced at the memory, clenching his fists inside his jean pockets and feeling Kurt’s letter crumple against his skin. Some hero he was turning out to be. Two of the kindest people he’d ever met and he had all the damn money in the world and he couldn’t even…

“Blaine, you okay man?” David leaned over the table to ask. Next to him Jeff watched Blaine closely his gaze questioning and concerned. Under the table Blaine felt the boy cup his elbow, a simple comforting gesture, but Blaine could feel the heat of his hand as though Jeff were some kind of furnace. He couldn’t help but think of dense jungle, steam, and the press of another boys lips against his. Blaine quickly looked away, angered with his continued weakness.

Couldn’t he do anything right today?

“I’m really sorry. I forgot I had something to do. I’ll see you guys later,” he excused himself as he pushed his chair away from the table, leaving his confused companions staring after him.  Blaine was thankful it was Wes’ turn to bowl because Wes would have been sure to chase him down and demand an explanation.

He had none. He just couldn’t sit still anymore. There was that fire in his gut and it kept burning and burning and all he wanted to do was fight someone until he bled some more or died. His friends didn’t deserve whatever outburst his current mood was sure to bring.

“Blaine wait,” a voice called and Blaine stiffened but didn’t slow his stride as he walked away from the bowling alley. That wasn’t Wes` voice, it was Jeff’s. Blaine knew it would be a mistake to turn around, a huge error in tactics, one more failure of the day.

“Dude please just…Blaine come on wait for me!”

Maybe it was the pleading, maybe it was the fire in his belly that wouldn’t quit burning, or maybe it was the little voice in his head that asked him when he’d ever be done running, when he’d finally stand up and fight for something like he gave a damn and actually win.

Whatever it was, Blaine went against his strategy, he made a decision that he knew was a tactical error, one that would result in uncalculated future troubles. He stopped and waited for Jeff.


	3. Chapter 3

_He was running through a familiar jungle. The soil beneath his feet was rich and warm, the foliage that brushed his face and arms cool and green. The air was heavy and thick in his lungs. Droplets of moisture clung to his hair and skin. He was used to running but this felt different. He wasn’t running away but towards something.  He couldn’t see what because the jungle was too dense. There was a flash of white as a bare figure appeared only to disappear a moment later deeper and deeper into the green and brown. He opened his mouth to call out but no sound would escape. He ran harder but instead of whizzing by the trees only seemed to swirl thicker around him. He was only running in place now._  
  
The sound of sharp beeping woke Blaine from sleep. He’d been in the gym for thirteen straight hours the day before doing a vigorous work out session and attempting to break in some of the new weapons he’d brought back with him from China. At the sound coming from his cell phone he was instantly alert and battle ready. Master Yurima would have been proud.

 **David Thompson:** We’re going to the movies tonight. No excuses. Consider it a belated happy 16th birthday bash.

Blaine looked down at the text on his screen and sighed. Wes had been badgering him almost 24/7 since he got off the plane. He should have known it wouldn’t be long until he roped David and the others into it.

 **Blaine Anderson:** Hi to you too David. How have you been?

 **David Thompson:** Well you’d know if you hadn’t decided to spend a whole year abroad. You suck by the way.

 **Blaine Anderson:** Don’t act like I didn’t call you asshole. Phil’s been raging about my phone bill.

 **David Thompson:** Yeah but I miss your pretty face.

 **Blaine Anderson:** Shut up. Who else is coming?

 **David Thompson:** You, me, Wes and his latest, Jeff, Trent, Nick, Thad. The whole gang man.

 **Blaine Anderson:** Thad’s coming? I thought he swore never to talk to me again after I went out with his cousin?

 **David Thompson:** Yeah well he never shut up about you all year. I mean it. HE NEVER SHUT UP. Seriously though come!!! Jeff would like to see you.

 **Blaine Anderson:** Really? We left things pretty bad.

 **David Thompson:** Yeah what even happened there? You don’t have a problem with him being gay do you?

Blaine stared down at the text and his lips twisted in a self deprecating smile. Did he have a problem with Jeff being gay? Yes, but not for the reasons everyone thought. He’d known it was a mistake to flirt with Jeff, he’d known better than to let himself get too wrapped up in his body’s wayward desires. Desire like everything else of the body had to be controlled. Master Yurima had drilled that into Blaine's head for the past eight months.

He’d messed up, he knew that. The fact that it had felt nice to trade glances beneath eyelashes, to sit too close and share body heat, to brush hands as he walked with someone and actually feel something didn’t excuse his carelessness. It didn’t excuse his selfishness either, because it had taken a lot for Jeff to get the courage to come out to him. Jeff had stood in front of him with all that hope and fear and told him how much he wanted them to be together, and Blaine had had to tell him he’d ' _misunderstood_ ' things- oh and that he was leaving for China that weekend.

Being with another man was a line Blaine just couldn’t cross for a variety of reasons that Jeff (and anyone else for that matter) would simply never be able to understand. Some of those reasons rested in a graveyard and the others, well, he couldn’t explain those. Not even to himself.

 **Blaine Anderson:** Of course not. What movie are we seeing?

~*~ _Kurt is 15_ ~*~

Working at Lima City Cinema wasn’t exactly Kurt’s ideal summer job but since when did anyone care what he would rather be doing? He’d rather not be doing a lot of things, including wearing this dumb uniform with its starchy collar (even though he had to admit white didn’t look too bad on him). At least his boss had allowed him to spice up the ensemble with a bow tie and one of his favorite hats. There was no saving the pants unfortunately. Those shapeless black blocky things just were beyond redemption.

If Kurt had to choose the number one thing he’d rather not be forced to do however, he’d rather not have to go home to a sick mother and the proverbial cloud of doom that hung over his house. Hands down.

So… maybe he didn’t mind the summer job as much as he liked to complain to Mercedes that he did. At least it was something  to do  besides worry.

“Pocahontas and John Smith,” Mercedes prompted as she scooped up a king sized popcorn. They’d been playing ‘worst couples we’re supposed to think are romantic’ to pass the time.

“Oh, tell me about it. Are we supposed to forget that in real life he enslaved all her people and gave her small pox?” Kurt drawled in response, reaching under the counter for more paper cups.

“And what was up with the sequel? Where did that other guy even come from?” She asked as she passed their waiting customers their popcorn.

“Enjoy your show.” Kurt finished topping off their drinks and smiled somewhat blandly at the couple before turning back to Mercedes. “Harry and Ginny.”

“Don’t make me cut you, Hummel.”

“No I’m serious, Cedes. Where was the build up?” He grabbed the broom they kept propped up against the slushy machine and began sweeping up the layers of spilled popcorn that always seemed to magically appear every ten minutes.

“Kurt.” Mercedes giggled shaking her head. “If I have to hear your insane Drarry theories one more time…”

~*~ _Blaine is 16_ ~*~

Blaine heard his laughter first. As he and his friends rode the escalators up to the concessions area he’d been telling Wes stories from his year abroad, pointedly ignoring the looks Thad kept pinning him with as he went along. The escalator had dropped them off in the brightly lit concessions area and that’s when he’d heard it. Not the tolling of a bell and not a boom of thunder, none of the usual omens for the changing of a life.  
  
Just the sound of laughter.

He heard it and he thought that’s a beautiful sound, beautiful in the way a note of music is beautiful, something simply pleasing to his ear. It slid inside him like music- nothing too invasive, yet there just the same- wetting his curiosity and entreating him to drop everything else and pay closer attention.

As they approached Blaine saw that the laughter belonged to a boy around his own age who was talking with a dark skinned girl. He had his back turned, and no matter how much he craned his neck Blaine couldn’t get a glimpse of his face. Blaine’s attention was torn from him however as he and his friends paused to dig in their pockets for wallets and decide who wanted what and who wanted to split what with whom. When they’d sorted themselves they approached the counter.

The boy behind the counter put his conversation with his coworker on hold and turned to serve them with that overly bright smile you could only get when someone was being paid to care about you. As his friends started ordering their snacks Blaine hung back rooted to the spot. When the boy had turned an invisible lightning bolt had come down out of the sky and gone straight through him.

Though the other teenager wore a brass name tag Blaine didn’t need to see it to know who he was. He wasn’t seven anymore, his face and his body having gone through many changes, but just as Blaine had always known they would be the eyes were still the same.

Those eyes they were still an indescribable shade, still the brightest things in the room, and they still made something in Blaine’s stomach twist when they turned his way and rested on him.

Kurt’s eyes widened, getting bigger and rounder as they trailed over Blaine, taking him in- and Blaine had no idea why he was flushing, it wasn’t like he wasn’t used to getting stared at. He shifted uncomfortably, crossing his arms as if to shield himself, and looked away.

Unfortunately he caught Jeff’s eye, and the other teen’s gaze was so knowing that it actually stung him and he had to look away from that too. What was wrong with him? He could narrow his focus enough to split a dart right down the middle with a second dart but he couldn’t act normally around Kurt Hummel?

Jeff and Nick collected their nachos and soda and moved away from the counter. There was no avoiding it now.

Why the hell was he so nervous? So Kurt was attractive. Lots of boys were attractive. Hadn’t he learned the hard way that he had to control his desires? Hadn’t he spent an entire year learning focus for that purpose?

So what if they’d kissed once… and now he was looking at Kurt’s lips. Why were they so intriguing?  
  
Why did he even care? The point was… they’d been children when they kissed, and it could barely even be called a kiss really. It had been more like face mashing. Neither of them had known what the hell they were doing and now- now he really wanted to try again now that they were older and they did.  
  
He wanted it so badly it scared him… because he shouldn’t.

Right? It was weird to want to kiss a virtual stranger. That and kissing other men wasn’t on his agenda.

“Hi, Kurt.” Blaine winced at how weak his voice sounded. He’d been all over the world and studied under the greats. He could do things with his mind and his body that would shock most people and Kurt Hummel was reducing him to a bag of spineless nerves. This was not good.

Kurt’s eyes raked over him again, lingering for a moment on the earring that glinted in his left earlobe. It had been a gift from Master Yurima and it drove his uncle Philip crazy- which was all the reason in the world for Blaine to wear it, but suddenly he felt self conscious as hell and wanted to rip it out.

“Do I know you?” The other teen asked, just a hint of a snap in his voice.  Blaine winced again, opening and closing his mouth, at a loss for what to say or do next.

How could Kurt not know who he was? Okay that sounded arrogant as hell, but it wasn’t like Blaine had forgotten Kurt, and, well, they’d been each others first kiss. That was a hell of a thing to forget. Hell, maybe he was being extremely presumptuous. They’d been a couple of dumb kids the last time they’d seen each other, and just because Kurt wrote him a letter asking for his help last year didn’t mean Kurt would instantly recognize Blaine when he saw him. This wasn’t a movie or anything. What Blaine needed to do was get a damn grip on himself.

“I’m sorry. It’s Blaine, Blaine Anderson. We met a long time ago. I don’t know if you remember.” He introduced himself, feeling like an idiot. His friends were watching him curiously and the dark girl beside Kurt wasn’t even pretending not to listen. Kurt’s eyes could have frozen water as they regarded him.

“No. It’s not ringing a bell. Can I get you something?” He asked, his voice sickeningly sweet and Blaine knew for sure that he was lying. They both knew he was. In fact Kurt’s eyes were boring into him, daring him to give him a reason to really put him in his place. Blaine wasn’t sure what to do or what exactly was even happening and he hated the feeling of insecurity.

“Just a water please,” he finally said with his lips, but inside everything just kept saying ‘coward’ over and over again. Blaine was on a strict diet to keep his body in peak fighting condition, thus no snacks. Never in his life had he wanted a big steaming plate of nachos more though: comfort food. When Kurt wanted to hit he hit hard.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“What was that?” Mercedes asked the instant Blaine and his group of friends disappeared around the corner.

Kurt couldn’t answer right away. He was still a little too breathless to think properly. Breathless with rage, yes, very real rage. He hadn’t seen Blaine Anderson in the flesh since he was seven years old and how much of his life had been spent dreaming of a meeting just such as this? It made him furious to think about when he remembered pouring his heart into a letter, putting all dignity aside and begging that selfish good for nothing idiot to save the gardens.

He hadn’t. He’d never even answered the damn letter.

Gary had closed them down and his mother… his mother had closed down with them. She didn’t live for anything anymore. Not even him. Kurt gulped back the familiar sting of tears and began reorganizing his perfectly organized counter, ordering himself not to think about it. He’d been doing fine and he could keep doing just fine.

“What was what?” Kurt snapped in reply, plopping a salt canister on the counter top.

“That with Blaine” she insisted. “You pulling out your bitch face and acting like you don’t know who he is.”

“I don’t know him, Mercedes. We’ve spoken twice before this and-”

“You know what I’m talking about Hummel, don’t front with me.”

“Can we drop this, okay?” Kurt implored, sweeping away from the counter and out of the concessions area.  “I have to go to the bathroom. Cover for me.”

In the bathroom Kurt splashed water on his face and fixed up his hair, determinedly regulating his breathing and not letting his hands shake. He was alright. Nothing important had changed.

And that was the problem. They’d still lost the gardens and Mom was still slipping away like she didn’t have anything to hold onto. Maybe that wasn’t fair-cancer didn’t choose its victims based on who did or didn’t want to live- but… dammit she could try! Couldn’t she? Kurt immediately felt guilty and tried to back track. She was heartbroken and she was terminally ill. He got that. But why wouldn’t she let it go? Why didn’t she care that these were their last…

No, he couldn’t think about that either. Kurt hastily wiped his face again and squared his shoulders.  
  
It was hard enough being sick with something like cancer without having to watch everything you’d spent your whole life building come to nothing. He couldn’t imagine how that must have felt. He could understand why she was so heartbroken, really he could. And it didn’t have to be that way. All they’d needed was money, money he’d written Blaine and begged for, and Blaine had ignored him.

Well Kurt Hummel would never beg that asshole for anything again.

Kurt straightened his spine and marched from the bathroom. Part of him wasn’t surprised to see Blaine loitering in the concessions area, looking tense and nervous. Of course he was. Nothing was ever easy for Kurt was it?

Alright then, they’d finish this. Maybe it was even better this way. Blaine Anderson needed taking down a peg or two and Kurt wasn’t exactly sorry for what he was about to say.

“Can I help you with something?” He asked, marching up to the other teenager. Kurt had an inch or so on Blaine, which was a good thing because he’d never seen another guy their age quite as fit as Blaine was. Not in a vulgar way, with muscles bulging and veins popping everywhere just… honed. Compact, supple and undeniably- he should stop this line of thought. Attractive or not the guy was still an asshole, an asshole he wanted to punch.

“Why are you so mad at me?” Blaine cut straight to the point, voice soft and concerned, and Kurt both appreciated and hated him for it at the same time. He really wanted to make him hurt, really really badly.

“If you don’t know then I can’t help you,” he sneered. “Now I’ll have to ask you to either return to your movie or-”

“No don’t pull that on me. It isn’t fair,” Blaine interrupted him, reaching for his arm. “I haven’t spoken to you in eight years and you’re spitting vitriol at me. I want to know why.”

Kurt stared down at the hand gripping his arm and thought about all the days he’d daydreamed about those hands and the boy they belonged to. A boy who’d once told him he was capable of loving him no matter what, despite anything life could throw at them, no matter who he was or what he did. How naive could he have been, holding onto something like that?

“So do I, Blaine. I want to know why I haven’t spoken to you in eight years.” Kurt stared into the other teen, trying to crack Blaine open and see inside him.“I want to know why it was so easy for you to walk away.” He couldn’t add ‘from me’. No, that would be just too pathetic.

Blaine’s eyes, Kurt discovered, got bright and heated when he was angry. The intensity of them made Kurt’s breath hitch so that he couldn’t tell whether he was furious or…or something else. It all seemed to get mixed up and muddled inside him.

“You’re upset because I didn’t show up one day wanting to ride bikes?” Blaine asked, his voice laced with exasperation. “Kurt, I’d had one conversation with you in my life, and I’m pretty sure it was about how I was going to either grow up and marry you or your mother, so believe me when I tell you I had no idea what the hell I was talking about.”

“I told you not to promise it if you didn’t mean it. I told you not to forget and you did!” Kurt jerked his arm out of Blaine’s grasp, storming away. He knew he was being irrational-probably looked bat shit crazy- he knew Blaine was right and that this wasn’t what he’d meant to talk about at all. Kurt had meant to talk about the letter, that damn letter, but instead all of that other stuff had just slid past his lips like a wound he hadn’t even realized he had until the blood splashed his feet.  
  
He just wanted to escape it all but Blaine didn’t let him get too far away. He caught up to Kurt mid storm and grabbed him again. Kurt whirled around to face him, ready to yell for him to let go, only he swallowed the words and everything else in his mouth as his heart thudded hard in his chest at how close they were. They were so close he could feel Blaine’s breath across his cheek. Heat was rolling off the other teens body, or at least it seemed that way to Kurt. Looking at Blaine now was like suddenly looking at a different person, someone older and darker. It scared him if he was honest.

“Did you forget that the same day I met you, Kurt, I watched my parents die? Right in front of my eyes! I saw it all, I heard it all, and you can’t possibly know what that felt like- what it still feels like! I’m sorry things changed for you that day, really damn sorry. Tell me what I should have done to make it better for you!”

Blaine’s eyes were hard and angry as he yelled; they were so cold that Kurt was sure that others looking into them must think this boy was made of ice. He was closed off, reserved, perhaps even dangerously unfeeling.

And yet Kurt saw something beneath the surface: a fire, a hell from which demons were spawned and pain festered. Kurt understood private hells; he was living in one right now. It shouldn’t hurt so much, he shouldn’t really hold Blaine growing up and leaving him behind against him, because Blaine was right. He’d had his entire world destroyed in a day and Kurt hadn’t so who was he to be angry over something like a forgotten kiss in a garden?

But that’s the thing. He was hurt. It didn’t have anything to do with what was fair or rational; it had to do with the way he… felt. How he felt scared him. He had to breathe, had to make sense of everything and try to be fair. He could do that. The important thing was that Blaine, that someone out there, understand the hell Kurt had to live in daily.

“I’m sorry. You’re right about…about things being different.” Kurt forced the words past the lump in his throat. He’d allow Blaine that, but he couldn’t excuse other things. “But what happened to you and your parents doesn’t change that seven years later, when I asked you for help, when I needed you to hear me, you ignored me and now I get to watch _my_ mother die. She’s dying, and she’s miserable and I can’t…. I can’t do anything for her. I tried. I needed your help and…and you ignored me.”

Kurt watched the anger drain out of Blaine’s face, the coldness deplete from his eyes to be replaced by a warmer kind of sorrow. And there, that was the boy Kurt thought he knew.

“Your mother is dying?”

“She has cancer. The cancer’s what’s killing her, I know that, but she started the botanical gardens with nothing. It was her dream come true,” Kurt explained, his voice uncharacteristically low and rough with emotion even to his own ears. “She’s not dying of cancer, not really. I want to know why you didn’t answer me Blaine.”

“Kurt,” Blaine’s voice sounded small now and Kurt found it a bit disgusting that his eyes could possibly look even prettier when they were pleading. “I didn’t know. I did read your letter and I did care. I tried to get my uncle to donate the money but he wouldn’t. Kurt, I hated that I wasn’t able to help you.”

“And so you just left it at that, just never wrote back? You just left me waiting for some miracle while you cruised town with every blond piece of ass that would have you?” Kurt knew he was acting like a bitch-and didn’t know why he brought Blaine’s trashy girlfriends into it- but he couldn’t help it.

It didn’t look like Blaine had cared! Blaine just had no idea what it was like to watch someone he loved leave him, to be utterly powerless to  help them while…

The moment the thought flashed through his mind it was followed by a wave of guilt. So maybe Blaine did know how he felt. And there. That’s exactly why it hurt. Blaine of all people should have understood. It shouldn’t have been so easy to leave him to fend for himself.

Blaine was staring at Kurt as if he’d never seen him before, as if he’d fallen from the sky and declared that he only had another minute to live and asked Blaine for his last words. There was such fear and shame behind his gaze that some part of Kurt- a part that he hated at the moment- wanted to reach out and touch him. Just enough to center him so that he didn’t disappear completely inside himself. Kurt kept his hands at his hips. He was well past the desire to touch Blaine Anderson in any way that didn’t include a good slap across the face.

“Kurt, I’m so sorry,” Blaine spoke after the pause had stretched painfully long, his voice tremulous and heavy. “I should have written you back. When I couldn’t help you I felt like a failure. I didn’t want to have to tell you that I couldn’t make everything okay… I’m a coward. It’s what I do… I run, and I- I made it about me and I… god, I really fucked up.”

Kurt stared at Blaine, unsure of what to do or say next, so he simply did nothing. Of all of the responses Blaine could have given a bald apology was not what Kurt had expected. It didn’t change what was happening to him, it didn’t excuse much of anything, but that tightly wrapped coil inside of him unwound just the same.

There was a part of him that desperately wanted to stay angry but in the face of Blaine’s naked emotions he just couldn’t. The truth was he hadn’t mentioned his mother’s illness in the letter and at the end of the day Blaine wasn’t even in charge of his inheritance, his uncle was. Kurt knew firsthand how clear Phillip Morris had made it that he didn’t care about their cause. Blaine had tried, of that Kurt was sure.  Listening to him Kurt had no doubt in his mind that ‘making everything okay’ was something Blaine had indeed desperately desired to do. Blaine said the words like his failure to do so had earned him rights to eternal judgment.

“Yeah, you did,” Kurt agreed. He glanced back to his station to see Mercedes juggling customers and watching them with earnest interest. It wasn’t Blaine’s fault. He’d always known that. “But not intentionally. I believe that. You’re not the reason my mom’s…you’re not what I’m really angry at, Blaine. I’m sorry I said that you were the reason I’m losing her. You’re not.  I hope you know that.” Kurt looked back to Blaine, searching his troubled hazel eyes for some acceptance of that truth. All he saw was guilt, guilt that was so heavy Kurt couldn’t stand to be under the weight of it any longer. “I have to get back to work now. Thank you for the apology.”

He could feel Blaine’s eyes on him as he walked away though he didn’t turn around. He had to struggle to keep his composure because he felt strangely bare and unprotected now that he’d finally had the chance to meet Blaine face to face and say everything he’d been dying to say all year. It had been easy to be strong back when he could blame Blaine, when he could point to Blaine and say ‘if he’d have just…then none of this would be happening’. But that, though comforting, was still just a lie.

The truth was Nora Hummel was dying because she’d lost the will to live, even for her family, and there was nothing anyone in the world could do to change that but Nora herself, and she didn’t want to.

Apparently there was nothing left that was worth it to her


	4. Chapter 4

By day Lima City was a bustling metropolis full of hope and prosperity. By day it was easy to ignore the rising crime rate, the rumors of mob activity and the occasional costumed psychopath, because by day all of those things seemed far away.

By night Lima City played host to an infestation of petty thieves, mob bosses and dangerous villains with strange personas and even stranger powers. The citizens of Lima had no choice but to carry on as normal and to rely on the police to rein in those who would seek to harm them. Still they knew better than to stray alone into dark corners.

Blaine was old enough now and strong enough that he could no longer in good conscience sit idle while the same types of people who had stolen his childhood terrorized others. During the day there was school, as well as his internship under his uncle at Anderson Enterprises, but the night was his to do with as he pleased.

He always made sure to drop in at the wildest parties in town, to be seen leaving with some drunk girl who he could dump at a hotel while she slept off the booze. And then he would patrol.

Blaine wasn’t as high tech yet as some of Lima City’s more notorious villains, but he’d picked up a few gadgets during his travels that helped him get the job done. He had a pretty sweet grappling gun, a shiny new pistol he was a crack shot with and, more importantly, he had his wits and years of training in over twenty different fighting styles.

That, and he was eighteen and a man now, so there was no choice but to start fighting. Not if he wanted to live with himself.

Confidence, Master Yurima always told him, was the key to winning any battle. Blaine Anderson had doubts, Blaine Anderson had fears and weaknesses he didn’t know how to deal with, but when he dressed in black and slipped that bat shaped mask over his eyes all of that melted away.

The batman feared no one and nothing. He was something to be feared.

Crouching on rooftops and peering through binoculars was a surefire way to get you arrested as a peeping tom, but Blaine was so still and silent that he blended into the night as if they were one and the same. He’d been trailing a couple of known thugs, hired hands for a a guy named Oswald Chesterfield who had a mob sheet as long as Blaine had been alive. They’d parked themselves outside Moe’s Grocery and had been watching the place for a good ten minutes now.

Blaine didn’t know if they were waiting for the owner Moe to come out or to close up but either way he had that tingle at the base of his spine he always got when something was about to happen. He could feel the tension in the air about to snap.

~*~ _Kurt is 17_ ~*~

Kurt paused in the doorway of the living room of his home and heaved a weary sigh. It wasn’t just that he had to work long hours after school while his friends made final memories and anxiously awaited college acceptance letters. Kurt too was anxiously waiting to hear back from the one and only college he’d bothered applying to and he’d only done that because it was right there in Lima City. It wasn’t that Kurt didn’t want to go off and explore the world; on the contrary it was one of his dreams.

The reason Kurt had only applied to one school and the reason for his sighs was sitting in the ratty lazy boy dozing in front of the television. Since his wife had died nearly two years ago Burt Hummel had been living in a sort of daze. Some days he seemed determined to go on as if he weren’t the walking wounded, as if the death of his wife hadn’t torn a hole inside him. He’d get up, get dressed and suddenly want to make Kurt lunch and drive him to school like he was seven again instead of seventeen with his own car (and perfectly capable of making his own PB&J sandwich).

If Kurt showed his independence in any way Burt would get this lost look and Kurt would have to watch him slowly deflate throughout the day as if the weight of his shoulders had become too much. Eventually he’d end up right back where he was now, in the lazy boy in front of the TV a half full beer can toppled on the floor at his feet.

Other days he went straight for the lazy boy.

Kurt knew there were many stages of grief and he also knew that letting mom go had been hard for his father, but he worried for him. He worried for his heart when he drank too much and didn’t eat the meals Kurt laid out for him. He worried for the future and that was why he didn’t feel right moving away.

He was okay with that. If he got into ULC he could commute from home, and if not then…then he’d do the college thing someday.

Kurt gathered up the beer can and a couple of other loose items scattered on the floor by his father’s chair and tossed them in the trash bin. He grabbed an extra blanket from the front hall and laid it over Burt ,turning off the television. The sudden absence of the TV’s quiet drone woke him though and Kurt couldn’t help a smile at the sleepy way Burt blinked up at him.

“Hey kid. How was school?” Burt asked.

“Well school was hours ago,” Kurt replied with a roll of the eyes as he fussed with Burt’s blanket. “Work was a chore as usual.”

“I thought you liked working with plants,” Burt commented with a yawn, sitting up straighter in the chair. Kurt heard his back pop and winced for him as Burt made a face.

“I do, but Martha has no idea how to run a proper nursery and doesn’t think growing up with one of the most accomplished botanists of the age for a mother counts as experience,” Kurt replied, irritated at the very thought of his boss. He was sorry he got into it at all though because his dad got that pained look he always got on his face whenever Nora was mentioned.

“Anyway, I looked in the fridge and you forgot to get milk again. And we’re low on a few other things. I’m going to run to Moe’s. Will you be alright here?” Burt waved him away, assuring him that he was capable of taking care of himself.

As Kurt drove to his favorite grocers he thought about how untrue that was. Burt didn’t take care of himself and so Kurt had to. Not that he didn’t want to. He loved his father and his father needed him until he could get back on his feet. Burt would too. Nothing was going to happen to him because Kurt would take good care of him. Burt wouldn’t just slip away like mom had, because maybe cancer was out of Kurt’s control but a little thing like depression… well people got over that when they weren’t already terminally ill.

He felt something wet trickle down his cheek and he wiped it away, tightening his hands on the steering wheel. What was the matter with him getting all emotional over nothing? He pulled into an empty spot in front of Moe’s and made sure his keys were in his pocket and out of sight before locking the doors. Lima wasn’t exactly the safest city at night.

Now Kurt might have known that in the back of his mind, but the last thing he’d expected to happen when he walked through the doors of the store was to see two men at the counter with guns. As the door finished shutting with a jingle behind him the two men whirled to face him, swiveling their guns back and forth between him and a terrified Moe.

Kurt couldn’t breathe. He stared down the muzzle of the gun pointed at him in absolute terror, frozen where he stood.

“Don’t run or I swear I’ll shoot you,” one of the men barked and Kurt’s knees started to knock together. “Get behind the counter with him. Hands up where I can see them!”

He was hyperventilating, he knew that. He was also panicking because he wasn’t doing the smart thing and getting behind the counter; he was backing up. The only thought in his mind was how much he wanted to live, how much he wanted…

“Didn’t you fucking hear me! Get your ass behind the damn counter!” The man bellowed, marching towards Kurt. His survival instincts finally kicked in and Kurt hurried to follow hia orders. The man with the gun shoved him roughly as Kurt scurried past and Kurt saw him turn and lock the door.

What happened next happened so fast that he would never quite piece it all together. No sooner had the guy by the door locked it then there was a horrible crashing sound as something large and black came hurtling through the storefront window. Kurt instinctively threw his hands over his head and ducked down, a short scream of fear bursting out of him before he bit down on his lip to silence himself.  
  
When he had enough presence of mind to open his eyes and get a hold on what was happening around him there were gunshots going off and he couldn’t see anything because the room was filled with thick grey smoke.

It was hard to hear over the sound of the stores alarm shrieking, but he definitely heard the shots and they lit up the room like lanterns in a thick fog, highlighting the shadowy silhouettes of the other men in the room. Kurt pressed himself as tightly as he could into a ball behind the counter as he listened to the sounds of shouting, gunfire, and the grunts and thuds of hand to hand combat. A gun went off, someone screamed, there was a thud and a crash and then the room went silent.

Nothing moved and Kurt couldn’t have if he wanted to. His muscles felt locked into place. He could hear the sound of his own harsh breathing and from somewhere nearby whimpering that sounded like it might be coming from Moe.

“Kurt?” A voice said in his ear and Kurt yelped swiveling to his left to face whatever attack was eminent head on.

The smoke had begun to clear now and Kurt could see that the voice belonged to a stranger dressed in black. Kurt still couldn’t see very much, his eyes still stung with smoke and tears, but he could see enough to make out that the stranger wore a mask; a thin dark mask that arched around his eyes in the shape of wings and met across the bridge of his nose to form some sort of body. A bat he realized.

“You should get out of here. You don’t want to be here when the police come.” Without saying anything further the stranger turned and strode out the window he’d come crashing through. Swallowing hard Kurt leaned out from behind the counter to see that the two men who had been holding up the place when he came in were slumped on the ground, dead maybe. One of them was bleeding pretty heavily from the leg.

There was a lot of blood actually, not pools but little splashes of it leading in a trail… out the busted window.

Kurt didn’t really think about it. He did not know what he had inadvertently stepped into but he did know that he didn’t want any part of it and that he definitely _didn’t_ want to be around when the police showed up. But truthfully, the most prevalent thought on his mind was that trail of blood and the strange man in black it belonged to.

It was about the time he’d scrambled through the window, nearly slicing his palm on a jutting piece of glass, that everything began to fully sink in. One detail in particular stuck out to him. The eyes glinting out from behind that mask had been hazel- the coldest glittering hazel he’d ever seen- and when the stranger had said his name and Kurt had turned, they’d been boring into him. Then there was the fact that the stranger had known his name to begin with.

“Blaine.” Kurt said his name, feather light and breathless in the night air, barely daring to believe it. How was it even possible? In what universe did Blaine Anderson come crashing through a window to take out two thugs and then disappear like some sort of superhero out of a comic book?

His heart had started to pound for entirely new reasons and he frantically searched the area as if Blaine might be conveniently standing somewhere nearby. Then he got smart and looked at the ground and there, a thin trail of blood. Kurt didn’t hesitate to follow it down the street and around the corner into an alley. It was there that he found Blaine leaning up against the buildings side under a fire escape. He was examining his side.

“Blaine?” Kurt hesitated at the mouth of the alley, common sense finally kicking in. Whatever was going on here it probably wasn’t the wisest to go into a dark space alone with a stranger he only thought he recognized.

The man in the alley didn’t answer, though he did look up when Kurt called. It was like seeing Kurt there flipped some switch and he sprang into action. He leaped up and grabbed the bottom rung of the fire escape and swung himself up in a move that would have been swift and graceful had he been able to complete it.

Instead Kurt heard him gasp in pain and then he was falling backwards, crumpling onto the cement like a sack of flour, and somehow Kurt just knew. He didn’t need any further prompting. He was at Blaine’s side a second later.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When Blaine opened his eyes his head felt groggy and stuffed but he forced his senses to stop rioting, his eyes to focus and clear. He quickly took stock of his surroundings. He was in someone’s bedroom: white walls, tons of pictures arranged artfully around the room-all in tasteful frames, even the ones cut from magazines- and curtains on the windows. All of the furniture matched and there were potted plants tucked artfully on nearly every flat surface. The was _actual_ ivy growing above the bed and Blaine gaped at it. It formed a massive draping canopy over Blaine’s head and even wound its way down the bed’s banisters.

It made him feel as if he’d woken in a jungle and maybe that's how he knew that this was Kurt’s room even before the memories came flooding back. Then the door opened and Blaine sprang up, battle ready, hissing at the pain that speared through his side.

A middle aged man he didn’t recognize stepped inside and looked him over with a critical eye. Blaine took stock of him and saw that he wore a blue uniform with his name stitched on the front. Burt Hummel. This had to be Kurt’s father then.

“Kurt! He’s awake,” Burt yelled over his shoulder and out the open door. He turned back to stare at Blaine with a hard gaze, lips pursed, and that was the moment Blaine realized that he was no longer wearing his mask, that he was also shirtless, and that someone had bandaged his side. Well then. This night was turning out brilliantly now wasn’t it?

“Kurt tells me he found you stumbling around drunk? Must have been one hell of a party.” Burt commented disapprovingly and Blaine flashed him a grin, shrugging weakly.

“It felt good at the time sir,” he replied, affecting a slight slur. He was relieved that for whatever reason Kurt had decided not to tell his father the truth. Did Kurt even realize the full extent of the truth?

“How’d you get that?” But asked suspiciously, nodding towards Blaine’s wrapped side.

“Well sir, somewhere between the roof and the pool... I think. I’m not really sure at the moment.” He smiled sheepishly at the older man. Then he grimaced as if his head hurt and brought his hands up to his temples. He was just rubbing out his nonexistent headache and planning a way out of there when Kurt came into the room.

“Oh great, you’re awake. I didn’t know who to call,” he greeted Blaine cheerfully for his father’s benefit, and Blaine decided that that was in fact a very good idea. He could go along with the story Kurt had already provided and call for a car from Luis.

“I got some extra bandage tape. I want to make sure that will stay on until you can get to a doctor and see about getting some stitches,” Kurt explained, waving the roll of tape in his hands for emphasis. He turned to his father and frowned slightly. “Could you give us a minute dad? I want to talk to my _friend_ Blaine here alone.”

Burt hesitated, clearly uncertain as to whether it was wise to leave the two of them alone. He probably still wondered what the hell was going on.  
  
“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble sir, could you call Luis Montgomery at 226-9489? Tell him to come get me...and bring ice, lots of ice,” Blaine pleaded, gripping his head as if there were jackhammers going to town between his ears.

“Sure, kid.” Burt agreed after a moment. “Call me if you need anything, Kurt. I’m right outside.”

Once he’d closed the door and his father’s footsteps had retreated down the hall Kurt turned to him, cheery smile dissipating. He stared at Blaine like he was examining something under a microscope. Blaine had seen him a couple of times since that night at the theater a couple years ago but always in passing and never for very long. Neither of them ever seemed to know what to say to the other.

Now Blaine was in a pickle and he had to find some way to keep Kurt quiet about everything he’d seen that night but Blaine couldn’t seem to concentrate on the full gravity of the situation when Kurt was right there in front of him. He really did have the most beautiful eyes of anyone he had ever seen. Always the eyes. Maybe he was obsessed. It didn’t help that they still haunted his dreams every night.

“So, I suppose thanks are in order, both for saving my life and for my dad. This is the most he has been like himself in weeks,” Kurt finally said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. He didn’t break his gaze with Blaine. Blaine had seen stares like that on jungle cats but never on another human being. It made him want to squirm but thankfully his training kept him still.

He couldn’t take his eyes off of Kurt, though that wasn’t exactly new. Kurt had always snared Blaine’s attention this way, gotten under his skin and forced him to pay attention. Tonight it had nearly gotten him killed. He had been in control at first- control was essential to every warrior Master Yurima had taught him- and then Kurt had driven up and Blaine had felt all of that control slip away. He’d watched Kurt walk blindly into danger and all of his careful plans and all of his strategies had flown out the window.

Blaine had gone charging forward without a plan, just the desperate need to save. He’d taken a bullet to the side as punishment for his error and a warning that stupidity would get him killed.

The slightest slip in judgment could mean the end for Blaine and Kurt… Kurt was a ticking time bomb.

Beside him Kurt stirred and Blaine watched him pull something black and crumpled from his pocket. It was his mask he realized after a moment.

“So what am I supposed to think about all of this Blaine?” Kurt asked, looking up from the crumpled cloth in his palm. “I’d prefer the truth.”

Blaine couldn’t believe that during the last real conversation he’d had with this boy they’d been at each others throats and now he was sitting on his bed with a lump in his throat the size of Texas and he had no idea what to say- yet again.

He knew what he should do. The obvious choice was to lie. He should spin whatever tale it would take to guarantee Kurt never spoke of what he’d seen. Tactics 101.

He should do it, he knew that, but when Blaine opened his mouth to form the words he wavered.

He had so few memories of Kurt. He could count their face to face conversations on one hand, but that didn’t matter because no one had ever gotten inside Blaine like Kurt had. They somehow knew each other without knowing each other at all and though they had few memories together every one of them held meaning. More meaning than some people got in a lifetime.

The flowers in the pots by Kurt’s window: the tall ones were summer forget me nots (Kurt’s second favorite) and the short ones those were special to both of them (a first favorite). Kurt had been the one to introduce them to him one day long ago in a graveyard when the world had been dark and gray. Miranda’s rose.

“I won’t lie to you Kurt,” Blaine found himself saying instead. His heart sped up as each word slipped past his lips, but he didn’t try and stop himself. For once they were the right words. He’d never lied to Kurt before and he wouldn’t now. That at least was something he could give.

“Do you promise?” Kurt asked. “Don’t promise if you don’t mean it.”

“I promise.” Once the words slipped past his lips Blaine was thrown back to a time years ago when he’d stood face to face with this same boy, amidst the humidity and steam of a greenhouse, and similar words had been traded. He’d been so young then, so idealistic and hopeful and in love. Well as much as it was possible for a child to know love.

He wondered sometimes, he wondered what would have happened if he and his parents had left the theater earlier or later that night, if they’d survived and life had gone on as normal. Would he have begged his father to take him back to see his new friend? In that reality maybe he and Kurt stayed friends, maybe they had a thousand more memories.

Maybe that Blaine knew what it was like to kiss Kurt now that they were grown. Maybe in that reality Blaine was no stranger to the Hummel household and he could just lean over and press his lips against Kurt’s as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Blaine wanted to kiss Kurt, he wanted the moment to be sweet and tender, he wanted it to be hot and heady, he wanted it to be a plethora of things but most prevalently he wanted it to be here with this boy. Here with Kurt. In that moment his whole world narrowed to one point, Kurt was beginning and end. Kurt felt like everything.

“What are you thinking about?” Kurt asked, eyes caught with Blaine’s and he swallowed hard. Blaine couldn’t help watching the shift of muscles beneath the pale skin of his throat.

“How different things might have been,” he answered honestly, breaking the moment. He would always answer honestly so long as Kurt was Kurt. He hadn’t kept his first promise, he wasn’t going to grow up and marry Kurt, but he would keep the second. He would always tell Kurt the truth.

Kurt didn’t seem to need him to explain. He nodded and gazed down at his hands for a moment.

“Yeah, there are things I wish were different too,” he agreed softly, and Blaine found himself leaning forward just to catch his every word. “Could have been always looks good, but you can’t waste your life living for what could have been. You have to make the things you want most happen for yourself right in the here and now.”

“I know,” Blaine agreed. “A little too well actually. I’ve given a lot for certain things and before it’s all done I’ll give a lot more.”

“Even your life?” Kurt asked, eyes boring into Blaine’s bandaged side. This time they were shadowed with something dark and Blaine skimmed his hands across the white fabric of the bandage as he contemplated. Would he give his life to make things right and save those who couldn’t save themselves?

Yes, yes he would, his whole life.

Blaine nodded. Kurt bit his lip and looked away again, gaze shuttered.

“What is it you want for yourself Kurt?” Blaine asked because in that moment if he could do anything, he would give the boy beside him anything and everything he wanted out of life.

“Well once I wanted to grow up and marry this boy who swore up and down he’d love me true,” Kurt admitted with a low chuckle. He turned back towards Blaine and they almost bumped noses. Blaine wasn’t sure which one of them inhaled quickest. They blushed and stared intently at each other for a moment before Kurt continued quietly, “Now I just want to go to ULC and work with plants. I want to reopen the gardens someday.”

“For your mom?” Blaine asked as Kurt moved away. He ripped off a couple strips of bandage tape and applied them to the edges of his bandage and Blaine couldn’t help the way his body clenched beneath the heat of the other boys hands. His face was burning he was sure of that, but there wasn’t much he could do about that either.

Kurt nodded as he worked and added firmly, “For me too. It was in my veins as much as it was hers.”

In the veins. It was something like blood, like water, like poison, something that once gotten in was impossible to get out.

Blaine bit his lip, unsure of himself but carried away by a sense of urgency,of need, that he couldn’t ignore despite every warning signal his good sense gave him. He tentatively placed his hand over Kurt’s where it smoothed the newly applied tape. He felt the shape of Kurt’s bones, the poke of knuckles and the fine tremble of muscles beneath his hand. Blaine heard him inhale sharply over his suddenly racing heart and he thought wildly that if he closed the space between them Kurt would prick his skin, draw his blood, and get in his veins as sure as any poison.

Maybe he already had.

“Did you ever… did you ever kiss anyone after me?” Kurt asked, voice low and breathless.

It had never hurt Blaine more to nod, and Blaine couldn’t meet Kurt’s gaze for a long moment. He didn’t move his hand from where it lay over his nor did Kurt seek to move his out from under. Blaine could feel his fingers flex beneath his hand, feel the blunt press of them over his wound through the bandage and the pressure induced a dull throb. For reasons unexplainable the pain was welcome.

“Another boy?” Kurt asked, a darker edge to his voice and this time Blaine shook his head. No, never another boy. In all his years of kissing Blaine had only ever had one kiss that made him feel anything.

Kurt didn’t say anything more. He just sat and regarded Blaine with a piercing stare that cut through him deeper than the bullet had managed to, only it wasn’t blood he forced out of Blaine but truth.

“I kissed this girl Brittany in my class and I tried to imagine what it would be like to kiss you now that we’re both older,” Kurt admitted quietly. “If I kissed you, do you think you’d fall in love with me?”

Blaine had never known someone quite as candid as Kurt, nor had he ever known fear quite like the kind he faced now. It was different from the terror of facing death and in a strange way more terrifying even than the fear he’d felt the night his parents died.

Death came to everyone eventually; death, no matter how gruesome, was part of human existence. Love however was not guaranteed, nor did it ask for permission. Love was an invader, the ultimate loss of control and for a man who had vowed his life to the dark places, even if only to wage war with them, any loss of concentration or control was simply unacceptable.

And yet Blaine could neither take his eyes off of Kurt nor tell him no. He’d promised not to lie. He was stuck, so he simply did nothing.

When Blaine did not speak or even nod a slight secretive smile lifted the corners of Kurt’s mouth, a powerful little smile full of knowledge. Barely had Blaine finished a quick intake of breath before Kurt’s lips met with his. Kurt’s cerulean eyes seemed to burn into the back of his retinas, and as his lashes lowered Blaine shuddered and let his own eyes fall closed, trying desperately to keep the rush of feelings inside of him at bay.

His lips were soft and firm and the hand pressing against Blaine’s chest for balance was hot on his skin. Blaine’s hands clenched in the bed spread as Kurt pressed his tongue to the seam of Blaine’s lips, one tentative stroke that seemed to reach inside and pull a muffled whimper out of Blaine. He tore himself away because he simply had to.

“Kurt…” there was so much Blaine needed to say, but he didn’t seem to have the will or the breath to say it. He needed to explain how he would always have enemies, how his life would always be about vengeance and vengeance would leave room for nothing else. He couldn’t ever give Kurt all of the things he needed and deserved.

“Blaine. Whatever it was you were doing out there tonight. Whatever this means…” Kurt said, a bit breathlessly, gesturing with the crumpled mask he still carried in one hand, “It doesn’t matter to me. I want to know who you are, every last part of you, even the parts that scare you. I want you to know me the same way. I want you to love me… like I love you.”

And those words cut straight through Blaine.

Kurt loved him?

It wasn’t often that Blaine felt helpless, but he did now. He felt like it was hard to breathe, he felt like no matter what he did he would hurt; he felt inexplicably young in a way that he never allowed himself to be.

Kurt was in love with him?

How could Kurt know that for sure when they’d only had a handful of meetings, when there had been so much strife in their lives and between them and when… when neither of them had ever known what it was to truly be with anyone else?

Fuck they didn’t even know what it was like to be together. So what if Blaine knew his favorite flowers! They had no experience, no idea what it was even like to be in a real relationship. Blaine didn’t have relationships. He had props! That was the farthest thing from healthy, he’d be the first to admit it. He was probably warped, would screw up a real relationship if he ever had it. He knew nothing about love, neither of them did, and he couldn’t really afford it anyway so who was he….  
  
He forced himself back under control, focused on breathing, bit his tongue to bring his body back to a solid point.

To imagine himself in love with this boy was foolish. That was simple enough to reason.

And yet, if he could love anyone….if he could imagine the feeling he'd imagine it felt something like this.

Kurt looked so earnest, his vulnerability only made more pronounced with the naked yearning in his eyes. It was a yearning Blaine returned and the knowledge of that made him feel ill. He had messed up again. Why could he never get things right with Kurt?

He hoped that when it was over Kurt would strike him, or curse or yell, anything to give him what he needed and allow him to find his feet again. The pain Blaine could welcome because he felt he deserved it.

Maybe that’s what was going to kill him the most, knowing that somewhere out in the world someone like Kurt existed- someone he wanted so badly that he felt it like an ache in his bones- and he would never be the kind of man he needed.

“Kurt,” Blaine dropped his head against his chest and inhaled a shaky breath. “Kurt I can’t.”


	5. Chapter 5

Time can do a lot of things and heal a lot of wounds. Time certainly had changed things for Kurt who was no longer a seventeen year old boy but a man fully grown. He’d graduated from the University of Lima City with a double major in botany and chemistry, gone on to get a masters in bio engineering and at the ripe age of twenty six he was two and a half years into his PHD program. He had a serious job at a laboratory when he wasn’t in school, his own apartment in downtown Lima, and while he still couldn't boast a host of friends he was proud to say that he was no longer that lonely outcast teenager but a confident and respected adult. The only thing that time hadn’t changed about Kurt was his rather dysfunctional love life.

Being a smart man he didn’t like to be in the habit of lying to himself. He never bothered with pretending not to know why at twenty six years of age he’d never had a real boyfriend. It started with the fact that scientist or no he had a romantic side. Years ago he had promised himself to the first boy that made his palms sweat and his heart pound. He had then proceeded to spend the first half of his adolescence hiding photos and news paper clippings concerning that same boy in a shoe box under his bed. The latter half he’d spent too angry with him and the world in general to even consider romance. Then just at the cusp of manhood he’d all but proposed only to be rejected in favor of his loves equally romantic oath to save the world, one masked villain at a time.

Blaine had never come out and admitted that he was the man behind the vigilante's mask but Kurt wasn’t an idiot. When Oswald Chesterfield and the rest of his mob associates started getting bolder with their crimes and the Batman appeared on the scene it really hadn't taken him long to put two and two together. The rest of Lima City might wonder who was behind Batman but Kurt was certain he knew.

Only once had he outright asked him and Blaine had chosen not to answer. That had been answer enough. When someone who couldn't lie to you chose to be silent on an issue it was rather telling. It was an unspoken rule between them that they didn’t talk about Batman, much like they didn’t talk about the fact that they’d been in love for most of their lives and it didn’t appear to be fading. When they had been younger sometimes in the middle of some beautiful perfect moment Kurt would catch him by surprise with a kiss and ask him with a whisper if Blaine loved him. Always Blaine answered truthfully. _I can't._ Word choice was important, every English professor he’d ever had said so, and that right there was all the reason in the world why Kurt Hummel had never had a serious boyfriend.  
  
Blaine never lied and Blaine never said _I dont_ , always _I cant_. Can’t could also mean can’t right now and didn't have to mean won’t someday.

He was a man of reason, Kurt, despite his frustratingly romantic leanings when it came to one hazel eyed individual. Being a man of reason he didn’t enjoy the thought of dependency, or dare he even say it _desperation_ , so he had of course a time or two over the years made some ill fated attempts at dating. His first year of college he’d convinced himself that he was in love with his roommate Finn Hudson, who could not have been more straight and less inclined to bend on the issue. The only good thing that had come out of that entire debacle was Finn’s mother Carole meeting his father. He and Finn were stepbrothers now and so had ended another romance that never was.

He’d gone out with some other guys since then. A date or two here or there but never more than that. He was probably the only twenty six year old virgin he knew. It was a fact that only really bothered him on the principle that he was more than ready to end his not entirely self imposed celibacy streak. It didn’t appear to be changing anytime soon however because true to habit he was sitting in a coffee shop waiting for the one man who was all kinds of wrong for him but stubbornly remained the one man he really wanted.

Blaine was late, but that was no surprise. Years of friendship had taught Kurt that Blaine’s life was a constant stream of activities. Between his work with Anderson enterprises, networking with the rich and powerful, juggling his many girlfriends and that _other_ thing, he really had no time for a thing like an actual social life.  Nevertheless it was something they had both fought to maintain over the years.

Blaine would come whenever he was ready and Kurt, sad as it was, always waited for him. That particular day he'd been waiting so long he'd gone ahead and ordered their usual mocha and medium drip and gone to wait at a table.

“Hey stranger,” a cheerful voice called from behind him. Kurt looked up from sipping his mocha as Blaine and his not so welcome current girlfriend breezed in, bringing a gust of November chill with them.

He nodded to them both in greeting and eyed the woman with a tight smile. For her part the silly woman never acted as if she noticed Kurt's barely hidden hostility.

“Hello Kurt,” Rachel Berry, the most irritating of Blaine’s girlfriends to date, greeted him and Kurt tried to widen his tight smile but he just ended up sort of grimacing at her.

“Hi Rachel. I wasn’t aware you’d be joining us.” He glared at Blaine but the other man wouldn’t meet his eye, using the excuse of stripping off his jacket and gloves not to have to look across the table.

“Oh I won’t be joining you boys today as I have an important show tonight and coffee isn’t good for my voice,” Rachel informed them and half the cafe in her boisterous voice. She leaned down to wrap her arms around Blaine and gushed, “I just came to drop this cutie pie here off.”

When they were out in public Blaine was a show that never failed to both appall and fascinate Kurt. It was amazing to him how well his friend could wear a different personality. He had the unique ability to become someone completely different with every gesture, remark, and glance. He did all of the work of the finest actor without the reward.

The person Blaine pretended to be was charming, amiable, extremely self centered and far too self indulgent. That man drank a little too much and played a little too hard. That man was holding Rachel Berry's hand and sitting up straight and regal in his seat as if he was somehow above his surroundings. Blaine Anderson as the public knew him wasn't just a mask that he wore but a second skin that he stepped into. It was so seamless that Kurt sometimes lost him- forgot what was Blaine and what was an act. He had to wonder sometimes if even Blaine didn’t sometimes lose himself.

“You’ll call me tonight when you’re through with business?” Rachel asked and Blaine smiled, bored and confident, before replying that of course he would. Rachel beamed and leaned in for a kiss that Kurt watched just because he appreciated fine acting and he saw no reason to waste a quality performance. When they parted, Rachel seemed almost more thrilled by the people watching them and whispering than she was about the kiss itself. Kurt snorted into his drink. He supposed that for an up and coming star dating Blaine Anderson was a dream come true.

“Well I’ll leave you boys,” the singer said with an dreamy sigh, no doubt playing it up for the cameras she seemed always convinced were on her. “It was really good seeing you again Kurt. You should come with Blaine to my show tomorrow. I’m sure he’d enjoy the company and you both are sure to enjoy my excellent vocals. I’m performing selections from Evita.”

Kurt would rather have his teeth pulled and fed to him than sit for hours and listen to Blaine’s annoying girlfriend butcher one of his favorite musicales but as the _‘best friend’_ he was required to at least pretend like he was thrilled at the invitation. Some days he managed to and some days he just didn't.

“Evita? Really?” He asked with a bit of a disbelieving smirk. He really couldn’t help it, it was asking a lot that he didn’t outright laugh in her face. If she didn't get it by now that he'd rather contract a disease than spend time with her then she never would.

“That’s a fantastic idea,” Blaine agreed, oblivious to Kurt’s jealous hatred of all things Rachel Berry. “Kurt loves Evita, he keeps trying to drag me to see a show whenever it’s running.”

“Wonderful,” Rachel exclaimed with a smile full of teeth. “And Kurt if your brother and his friend are free be sure to invite them too. It was wonderful meeting them last weekend.”

“Last weekend?” Blaine questioned with a confused lift of his brow. Kurt quickly filled him in.

“Rachel stopped by my apartment when Finn and Puck were over.”

“Yes, I was looking for you because once again you failed to tell me you were going out of town.” Rachel slapped Blaine on the shoulder with her gloves like someone would smack a disobedient dog. “Sometimes Blaine I could almost swear you try and avoid me.”

Blaine chose that moment to take a long sip of his coffee. Rachel glowered at him, waiting, and Kurt did his best to school his features into something like sympathy.

“No,” he denied with a shake of his head. “Who would want to avoid you?”

“Thank you Kurt,” Rachel beamed at him, proving once again that she was hopeless when it came to deciphering tone. “At least someone here knows how to pay a lady a compliment.”

“Ah, but he won’t take you out to dinner tomorrow night after your show and tell you how amazing you were.” Blaine took Rachel’s hands in his and helped her put on her gloves with the kind of smile that was better suited to a bedroom than a coffee shop. Blaine's girlfriends were annoyances that Kurt was used to, that only occasionally pricked him deep enough to draw blood. Looks like that one were sharp and he hadn't yet figured out how to dull their blow.  
  
So he busied himself with his phone scrolling through messages he’d already read. When the couple had said their goodbyes and Rachel had waltzed off he didn’t look up from his phone. He needed a moment to gather himself. He hated how much he let Rachel get to him. She was nothing more than an ornament really, she shouldn’t bother him- fuck he shouldn’t really care and he hated that he did.

“You’re upset,” Blaine ever so observantly guessed. Kurt looked up at him.

“What would I be upset about, Blaine?” He asked as tonelessly as he could.

“You don’t like her,” Blaine responded with a sigh. “I wish you’d give her a chance. You’re a lot alike-”

“That's an awful thing to say.”

“Okay.” Blaine raised his hands in surrender. “Lets not talk about Rachel. Deal? I don’t get to see you often and I’d rather not spend our time fighting.”

“Yes please, let’s not.” Kurt raised his cup to his lips and took a small sip, determined to swallow his jealousy and forget about it for the time being. Time with Blaine after all was precious. “So why did you ask to see me? You know I love getting a chance to see you but it had to be pretty pressing if you made time to meet me in the middle of your week.”

“I don’t make the time unless something is wrong, do I?” Blaine asked after a moments consideration. He frowned guiltily into his coffee. Though it was true, Kurt hadn’t meant to take him to task for it. He knew that Blaine hardly had time to do things just for the sake of doing them. Kurt was probably the only person close enough to him to understand why and how much that was a sacrifice for him.

“No you don’t. It would be nice to get a call from you some day that wasn’t at its heart about your nocturnal activities, but I understand why that doesn’t happen. Truly I do.” He laid a hand over Blaine’s on the table and gave it an encouraging squeeze and didn’t let go until he’d pulled a small smile from the other man.

“One of these days....” Blaine left that hanging between them and Kurt raised an eyebrow in question. “One of these days Kurt we’ll go out, wherever you want, and it will just be about us and not-what did you call them? My nocturnal actives.”

“It sounds so shady when you say it like that.”

“Well you said it.” Blaine chuckled. “But I’m serious. We’ll do it.”

“Wherever I want?”

“Wherever you want.”

“Mmm so many choices. You sure you want to hand me such power?”

“Well when you say it like that, maybe I should-”

“Nope too late.” Kurt was the one chuckling now. “No take backs now. I get one evening, anywhere I want doing anything I want.”

“Whoa whoa." Blaine put up a halting hand. "When did doing anything you want get tacked onto the list?”

“It’s implied.”

“No, Kurt, it is _not_ implied.”

“Yes, Blaine, it _is_. Why would you let me take us anywhere I want to go and not do what I want to do? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well... say I wanted to do something to surprise you. I couldn’t do that if you planned out the whole evening.”

“Deal with it,” Kurt quipped with a shrug, even though his insides were practically jelly at the thought of Blaine putting such a surprise together. “You’ll just have to surprise me some other evening.”

“Oh stop.” Blaine was outright laughing now. “You are trying to swindle the master swindler out of two free evenings.”

“You’re the master strategist.” Kurt laid his head on top of his folded hands and smiled innocently at him, playing it up because it was fun and what was happening between them always felt good. Blaine returned the smile and his heart thudded hard. It always did that. Blaine's smiles were something monumental, something the world rarely saw and didn’t even know it, something that only a collective few had ever managed to pull from him.

A genuine smile from Blaine Anderson. A smile without ghosts, without affect, without practice behind it. Kurt collected them like valuables and delighted in the collection. He only wished Blaine wasn’t so achingly gorgeous when he did so, then it wouldn't be as much an exercise in torture as it was pleasure. As if he could read Kurt’s mind Blaine’s smile faded and the warmness in his eyes depleted to something much cooler and guarded.

“What did you want to talk about ?” Kurt asked, unfolding his hands and picking up his cup again, business as usual.

“You actually,” Blaine answered taking another sip of his drink. “Or more accurately your newest professor.”

“Peirre’s replacement?” Kurt asked after a moments confusion. Since their time together was always so squeezed, school and Kurt’s research were usually the last topics to come up.

“Yes, Jason Woodrue.” Blaine nodded and Kurt shrugged.

“What about him?”

“Have you met him?”

“Yes, and he really knows his stuff. He agreed that my theory linking the length in the life span of the Awá-Guajá people to their exposure to _Ceiba pentandra x_ has merit. I’m considering asking him to be my thesis advisor.”

“That’s right Peirre was your advisor,” Blaine remembered with another guilty frown. “I’m sorry, Kurt. I know it was hard losing him.”

“He was a brilliant man. One of the few who backed my research.”

Kurt didn’t know if it was the curse of all young scientist yet to receive their PHD, but he found that his ideas were often overlooked or outright ignored by the leaders in his field. He knew he was young and fresh to the game but Kurt found it frustrating nonetheless when he had lived breathed and ate the subjects he was studying since he was a child. Peirre and his support had been a godsend, and he had been a valued mentor and partner. So it had been quite a devastating blow when he’d suffered an fatal accident while conducting field research in South Africa. Blaine had been chasing some psychopath at the time and had been unable to attend the funeral with Kurt like he'd assured him he would.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there, Kurt.”

“I know you are,” Kurt waved away his apologies because dwelling on it wouldn’t change anything and neither would making Blaine feel guilty about it. The other man’s whole life was about guilt. Sometimes Kurt was determined that if their friendship be anything that it be the one thing in Blaine’s life that wasn’t shadowed in guilt. So no... loving someone like Blaine wasn't easy but he had yet to regret it. Not when he knew that he could give Blaine something else nobody else could.

“Jason is no Michael, but he truly is fantastic, Blaine. He’s sharp and he approaches things differently than most of our other colleagues. He’s edgy like me,” he grinned but Blaine only returned the gesture weakly. “Alright, what is it?” He asked with a sigh, wondering at what had Blaine so uptight.

“Chesterfield mentioned his name.” Kurt blinked at him, running through the extensive list of people Blaine had ever mentioned to him in his mind.

“Wait... Oswald Chesterfield?” He asked as he connected the name with a face. The face of a notorious mobster and thief. Finn and Puck were always grumbling about how they guy had a rap sheet longer than Finn but the police couldn’t pin anything on him that would stick. Not even Batman had ever brought Chesterfield to justice for his presumed crimes. “You’re in the habit of chatting with Oswald Chesterfield?”

“I make it a habit to know all the important people,” Blaine replied with a shark toothed sort of grin that irritated Kurt. He knew it wasn’t for him but for all the people in the cafe around them that might be listening. He suddenly wished they were alone so that he did not have to sort through what was Blaine and what was pretense.

“Okay so Chesterfield mentioned Jason.” He waved the words away as if they were meaningless. “Is that all I get? Do I get context?”

“You know I can’t tell you that. I just want you to be careful Kurt.” Blaine leaned forward, holding Kurt’s gaze with such intensity that his breath caught somewhere in his chest. There was a warmth spreading inside him that had nothing to do with the coffee in his hands and everything to do with the man across the table.

“Alright” he promised quietly, holding Blaine’s gaze, “I will. I promise Blaine. I’ll be careful.”

~*~ _Blaine is 27_ ~*~

The thing about fighting crime, Blaine was discovering, was that crime did not sleep. Nor did it ever seem to end. Fighting crime meant that there was no such thing as down time, no such thing as a holiday, no such thing as _me_ time- much as Blaine would have liked to have some.

On top of crime fighting he had a business to run. He was young, only just having taking the reins of power at Anderson Enterprises and he still had a lot to prove. He had worked it all out in his head of course. He had already staged several take overs of smaller businesses since taking full control at twenty four and over the next two years he'd overtake several more significant companies he had already hand picked. That would not only strengthen the core of the company but suitably impress the people who needed impressing. A year or two after that with continued success he could appoint some trusted people to oversee much of the business for him and open up more of his time for investigation.

Investigating crime was key to preventing crime, especially crime of the sort that had a tendency to rear its head in Lima. It payed to have mouths that would talk on the other side of the fence. Which was why when he discovered that the master thief that had been plaguing Lima for months calling himself The Penguin was in fact Oswald Chesterfield, he had decided to let him go free under certain restrictions. So long as he gave Blaine the information that he needed they had something of a truce. It was complicated. Penguin knew who he was and Blaine knew who he was and they could easily destroy each other.... so they were at a bit of a stalemate.

It was only slightly comforting that Penguin considered himself a gentleman thief and his usual targets were inanimate rather than living people. Simply put, he had bigger fish to fry than Chesterfield at the moment. There was a killer on the loose.

It always seemed that Blaine had no sooner finished putting away one psychotic killer than there was another string of mysterious killings. The one connection between all of the recent deaths was so subtle that the local police hadn’t yet put it all together, but Blaine was a detective of a distinctly higher caliber.

The one connector between all of victims was Nora Hummel and her research. Blaine didn’t like coincidences under any circumstances but especially not when they involved Kurt. So he’d asked around on both sides of the law who might be most interested in Nora Hummel’s abandoned research and Chesterfield had given him a name.

Dr. Jason Woodrue.

A respected botanist, late thirties, no rap sheet but a keen bordering on obsessive interest in the biology of regenerating plant life. He’d been trying to duplicate Nora’s last years of research for years now with minimal success and had lost much of his funding as a result. Interesting that the man was now lined up to teach at the school where Nora’s son studied, a position only open to him after the sudden and unexpected death of one of Kurt’s closest mentors. Too many damn coincidences for Blaine’s liking.

Kurt despite Blaine’s admittedly cryptic warning was getting on famously with his professor. He had even gone through with asking the man to be his adviser, making Woodrue a partner in his research into the medicinal properties of _Ceiba pentandra x_ and its ability to lengthen the human lifespan. Exactly where Woodrue wanted to be.

Blaine’s hands were fairly tied. There had been no more deaths in the recent months and though he stuck to Woodrue like a shadow the man never stepped a toe out of line. His life was in that damn lab, just as Kurt’s life was becoming the lab, and if there was any crime being committed it was happening there.

And Kurt was involved. His Kurt, the one true friend he had.

“…and in the child’s case she had been exposed to malaria on a daily basis! Are you hearing me Blaine? do you have any idea what this means?” Kurt rapped his knuckles against the polished surface of Blaine’s desk and Blaine nodded, even though he had been lost in his own thoughts.

“It means she should have sickened and died and yet she didn’t. That’s amazing, Kurt. But how do you know it was a direct result of eating the seeds from the tree?”

“We can’t,” Kurt explained, cerulean eyes glittering with his passionate reply, “not without doing our own testing. To do that we need backing which is why I came to you.”

Blaine had known this was coming sooner or later. He stiffened, and because Kurt unfortunately was one of the only people he knew who could read him like a book the other man instantly went on the offensive.

“I am asking you both as your friend and as a potential investment. I’ve got it all worked out.” Kurt laid a large black binder on Blaine’s desk and proceeded to open it to pages and pages of detailed budget plans, research outlines, and potential outsources. “When we find what we’re looking for it will revolutionize modern medicine, Blaine! Think about it: cures for diseases like aids, cancer, things previously thought incurable.You want to be the man behind us, Blaine. Trust me.”

Blaine almost smiled. Kurt really _had_ worked it all out. He was a master of tactics and he’d never seen anything as thorough and exact as Kurt’s proposal outlines. He really wanted this, Blaine would have known that even without the binder. This was Kurt’s blood.  
  
Kurt was right. He really wanted to be the man behind him.

But he _was_ a master of tactics and the list of reasons why he could not/should not was longer than his arm. Woodrue was at the top in big bold black letters.

“Kurt it’s not that I don’t want to-”

“No don’t do that to me! If you want to do it than do it Blaine!” Kurt cut him off with an exasperated shout that took them both off guard. He was passionate about his research, but the force behind that little dig wasn’t called for, not over this issue. No of course it wasn’t. It was about every time that Blaine had wanted to be there and hadn’t been.

Kurt's hands tightened around the binder, looking chagrined at his outburst and he sighed. He looked heavenward for a moment, rocking back on the heels of his black and white Mezlan’s as if hoping the right thing to say next would fall into his lap. It didn't and Blaine thought that was appropriate because he didn’t think Kurt was the one at fault here, not really.

If he could collect all of the promises to his friend that he’d made and broken over the years he would have a pile large enough to bury them both in. There was only one he’d ever risked hell and high water to keep. Truth.

“Kurt, I know I don’t make this easy for you,” Blaine gave him the truth, the one gift he could. “You don’t know how much it means to me. How much you mean to me.”

There was so much more to add on to that, things like how he had woken up one day and realized his entire life was constructed on a platform of deception and how lonely that made him. With so much deception it was hard to remember sometimes what was true. Whenever he felt as if he was lost to everyone, including himself, Kurt had the ability to drag him back with something as simple as a smile or a touch.

Like now. That wry little smile that worked its way across the other mans lips, Blaine knew exactly what that meant and he couldn’t even be mad at it. That smile meant Kurt knew exactly what he did to Blaine, why Blaine in the end would give him what he needed.

“Oh, Blaine,” Kurt sighed his name softly. He came around the desk and placed his hands on Blaine’s shoulders, gently running his palms over them, rubbing their tension away. “I understand. It _isn’t_ easy, and sometimes that wears on me but… Blaine I’m proud of you, so so proud of you.”

He took in a deep breath as Kurt wrapped his arms around him and dropped his head to his shoulder, expelling the breath slowly.

There had been a night back when they were still teenagers when Kurt had confessed that he loved him and Blaine had been unable to return that love. Then, he’d held Kurt and begged him not to regret making the offer, not to think himself silly or unworthy when he was brave and so much more than Blaine would ever allow himself to be.

When after some miracle Kurt hadn’t hated him- telling him through a watery smile that saving the world wasn’t such a bad reason to be rejected- they had become friends and been friends ever since.

But in moments like this when Kurt wrapped love in deceptively harmless praise and his hands brought both comfort and torture, when his head was rested comfortably tucked in between Blaine’s neck and shoulder so that he could almost feel the press of his smile…

There was so much more that he wanted. There was an unbridled desire in him, an itch beneath his skin that he could not scratch. He was a danger to them both, a ticking time bomb, and yet he could not and would never walk away-remove the threat. A fail in tactics, a flaw in strategy, his Achilles heel... but so be it.

How could he walk away? What lover and what friend would ever compare to Kurt? Kurt was more than both, something far closer to flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone than words could define. He feared what he would become when Kurt left him the way some men feared their inevitable death.

He did not deceive himself thinking they could go on like this forever, that Kurt would always be at his side waiting for Blaine to turn and take his hand.

Maybe in some universe he did- in some other life perhaps Blaine Anderson was free to do so. He hoped that that was so. In this one however he would just have to be satisfied giving what little he could give.

“We’ll have to meet your team, the entire team,” he relented. “We’ll hold some sort of gathering, and I want to talk with Woodrue one on one. I’ve some questions for him.”

Blaine didn’t see Kurt’s delighted grin, but he felt it when his lips brushed his skin in a light caress they both would later pretend had never occurred.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It wasn’t the first party Kurt had ever attended at Anderson manor, nor did he expect that it would be the last, but it was by far the most important. He and his partners (an older couple by the name of Alec and Linda Holland) as well as Dr. Woodrue were the guests of honer. With Anderson Enterprises at their backs they could have all the support they needed plus more, so naturally Kurt spent hours preparing his look. Many of his colleagues and fellow students rather unfortunately fit the mad scientist stereotype when it came to their appearance, but Kurt had always firmly believed in selling yourself before selling anything else.

He picked Mercedes up ten minutes late due to a minor hair emergency. His invitation had said dates were welcome and his friend would murder him if he went to a party like this without her.

“You’re late,” she commented as she slipped into the passengers seat of his car and at the reminder his eyes flicked to the rear view for a quick check. Everything was still in place just as it should be.

“Sorry” he apologized, pulling out of the parking lot of her apartment complex.“I forgot to water my plants and in this humidity it wreaked havoc on my hair.”

“ _You_ forgot to water your babies?”

“I know! I’m so nervous Mercedes. I’m on the verge of a break down.” Mercedes poked her bottom lip out at that and rubbed his shoulder encouragingly.

“I’m so proud of you boo. You’re gonna blow these guys away, you always do.”

“Oh I’m not worried about me.” Kurt scoffed. “It’s a performance and perform is something I could do in my sleep. It’s all the little variables and everything that could go wrong. Money talks to these people and if we don’t convince them that we’re a safe easy way to make them some green we might as well be black listed.”

The rest of the drive to Anderson manor they spent much in the same fashion, Kurt wavering between over confidence and nerves with Mercedes offering sympathetic pats and encouragement before she finally flat out told him that those rich snobs would be crazy to turn him down. Kurt took a couple deep breaths and tried to take her advice not to worry.

When they reached Blaine’s gated driveway he rolled down his window and gave the smartly dressed attendant his name and his invitation. When he was cleared he rolled the window back up and shot Mercedes an elated grin.

“And it’s show time.”

“Okay you better debrief me again. You and Anderson are…?” Mercedes asked as they drove up the long drive behind a fancy red sports car. Kurt gave her a warning look. She didn’t fool him.

“Just friends, Mercedes, we’ve only ever been….” he trailed off as the tree lined driveway split its way through the Anderson Manor front gardens. There was no need for extra talking when a declaration the likes that this garden made was bursting out all around them.

Mercedes didn’t think his sudden drop into silence strange. She knew him and his affinity to plants well enough by now.

Kurt was very familiar with these gardens, he revered them like some might a holy relic.

Two years ago when Blaine had the sudden desire to redecorate them he’d hired Kurt as his chief consultant and Kurt had agreed as favor, refusing to take his money. He liked to think that Blaine had repaid him instead with his time, because Kurt couldn’t remember a period of their lives where he had seen more of Blaine. For awhile there they had lived in an idyllic day dream full of laughter and sharing. There had even been days where Blaine would wake and look out his window to see the gardener’s hard at work and find Kurt already chatting with Luis as if it were an everyday occurrence.

Needless to say he’d taken great care with the planning of this particular garden and he knew its structure and its layout as well as he knew his own body. He’d hand planted the roses. The deep red of the miranda rose carpeted the ground, sprinkled amongst them were white lilies and blooming above them on tall shrubs was _rose of sharon_ in whites, pale pinks, and deeper reds.  
  
All of the flowers filled the air around them with a pungent and sweet smell that Kurt breathed in just to savor. The plots of _cana_ and _melianthus major_ lining the road were in full bloom this late in spring and they were by far the hardest to care for, so he was quite glad to see that Blaine’s gardeners were proving competent.

The rather breath taking display was an ode, a love sonnet, to a woman that Kurt had never met. He’d only ever seen Miranda Anderson in pictures but he had been there when her husband asked for her flower to be created, he had heard the sound of devotion in his voice and seen the look of adoration in his eyes.

Kurt had sat with his mother as she sampled the other woman's perfume and labored to engineer a blossom that would closest duplicate the smell. He’d carpeted Blaine’s garden in her rose not just because they were his favorite but because he liked the idea that when they bloomed Blaine could open his window and fill his room with the scent of her. He had given her a home in the garden and it was only fitting that her beautiful roses should be surrounded by flowers that symbolized all types of love- from the sweet love represented by _melianthus major_ , to the consuming love of _rose of sharon_.

The fountain comes as a surprise. He had originally surrounded it in several of his own creations of hybrid lilies. They had symbolized beauty and elegance and he’d liked the idea of that being the lingering memory- left by a woman who had been both- rather than the horrible way in which she had died. He’d thought that Blaine could use a place for good memories.

He’d explained it all to him of course but at the time Blaine had just smiled fondly at him, as if Kurt were prattling on about things he could care less about and he was getting more enjoyment out of his enjoyment than he was actually tracking with him.

But as the drive wound past the fountain Kurt was proven wrong. Blaine apparently did pay attention to him when he rambled on about his plants and what they whispered to him. The fountain rad recently been lined with pots of beautiful deep blue _cape forget-me-nots_.

“Wow,” Mercedes sighed beside him. “That’s so gorgeous Kurt. You did such a great job on this garden. There’s so much focus on red shades and then just this drop of blue in the middle. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a flower that blue.”

“They’re summer forget-me-nots. They’re African and not the same genus as the usual forget-me-not which is why they’re such a deep blue,” he explained as the car crawled past the center of the garden. “They’re almost my favorite flower in the world. I didn’t plant them here though. I was going on a theme and they didn’t really fit.”

“How come?” Mercedes asked curiously, turning in her seat to catch one last glance of the fountain and its dressing of blue flowers.

“They symbolize true love, and my theme was his mother. Not that maternal love can’t be true but I don’t know, I just thought other choices better suited the mood I was creating.”

Once they’d left the gardens the driveway curved right in front of the steps of Anderson manor. There were a pair of valets waiting so Kurt brought the car to a stop in front of them.

“Uh, don’t look now but there go some more of your flowers.”Mercedes pointed out her window as Kurt undid his seat belt. He glanced out the passenger side window just as one of the valets opened the door for her and stepped aside. The steps leading up to the house were lined with potted plants, more cape forget-me-nots. He stared at them unable to stop the warmth flooding his chest and not at all trying to.

Blaine had decorated for him in a way that he knew Kurt would understand.

“So your boy…” Mercedes mused with an amused gleam in her eyes. “He decorates the place in your favorite flower, a flower that says true love, and he thinks you’re just friends?”

“The love between friends can be true too,” Kurt corrected her without his usual sternness. He was too touched to be stern. “It’s his way of saying he’s behind me.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Master Blaine?”

Blaine turned from the window where he’d been watching his guests arrive and nodded to his butler, a reedy Chinese man who fondly went by the name of Lu. In truth Luis Montgomery was closer to friend than family help. He had been employed at Anderson manor since before Blaine was born. It was to him Blaine had always run when father and mother were occupied by weighty business matters and it was on him that Blaine had relied most heavily after they had been taken from him.

“While it’s usually polite for the host to greet every guest and you should have been downstairs quite some time ago, I thought the arrival of Mr. Hummel would entice you out of your lair.” Luis tented his fingers where he stood by the door. He looked as stiff as a board and looking aloof as a king but Blaine wasn’t fooled. Of all his staff Luis was the best, and most forward, with making his opinions known. He was annoyed and Blaine knew he could no longer stretch the old man’s patience.

“I’m coming Lu, relax. No one’s going to be offended. Blaine Anderson _would_ come fashionably late to his own party,” he quipped as they departed the library, adjusting his tie as he went.

“Are all of the young people referring to themselves in the third person these days?” Luis asked with false curiosity as they walked toward the receiving room. Blaine chuckled even as Luis added, “one wouldn’t want you to develop a complex.”

“What makes you think I don’t already have one? Aren’t you the one always telling me that I should see a therapist?”

“One of my fondest wishes, Sir. Perhaps for my birthday,” Luis replied dryly and Blaine outright laughed.

“All you want for your birthday is for me to lay around on somebodies couch? I could do that here any given day. No old friend I’m sending you to Vegas, or at the very least home to China to see your family.”

“What would I do with myself in China, Master Blaine, when you and that nephew of mine are getting yourselves in trouble an ocean away? I wouldn’t be able to relax for a minute.”

“Do you ever relax, Lu?”

“I will relax Master Blaine, as soon as I am convinced you are in good hands and not a moment sooner.”

Blaine sighed as they came around to the age old subject of his settling down. He was twenty seven and his butler seemed determined to saddle him with a woman and a house full of children. He understood Luis` motivations. He wanted Blaine to have back what he had lost, wanted him to enjoy a semblance of normalcy, and most importantly he wanted Blaine to want something other than the life he lived.

“Has Rachel arrived yet?” He asked, almost as a boon to his friend. He was never going to settle as Luis wanted but Rachel was the longest running of his girlfriends to date. Her busy schedule worked well with his and they were like minded when it came to their ambitions. She only thought it was his company he was pouring himself into.

“Yes,” Luis answered without any inflection whatsoever. “And she’s quite irritated that you weren’t waiting to receive her.”

“Lu! Why didn’t you tell me?” Rachel might be understanding when it came to his constant need to be away on business, but she was no one to cross. He rather liked that about her, but he didn’t like to be on the receiving end of one of her fits.

“It would have interrupted your brooding,” Luis replied calmly as he swept open the side doors to the receiving room and a wave of sound hit them. “You do love to brood, Master Blaine.”

Blaine couldn’t answer that. He was quickly barraged by a wave of cheerful party guests and the sporadic flashing of camera lights. He shook hands and thanked their owners for coming, he winked when someone mentioned his lateness, and all the while he searched the crowd for one face.

“To your right, near the ballroom doors,” Luis murmured at his side and Blaine looked to where he directed and smiled. Kurt stood in the center of a small group, his friend Mercedes on his arm, talking animatedly to Gary Horne chairman of the Lima City Botanical Society. He looked stylish and sharp in his suit, his hair elegantly coiffed in a way that was so Kurt that it only made Blaine’s smile wider.

Blaine recognized the others in Kurt’s group, Gary’s wife, a reporter for the Lima News, Kurt’s partners Alec and Linda, and the man Blaine had been waiting to observe close up: Dr. Jason Woodrue.

He was a tall man, Welsh according to Blaine’s research, good looking in his way and certainly charming enough if the way the group erupted into laughter after he made some comment was anything to go by.

“You still wish to go ahead with your plans Sir?” Luis asked and Blaine did not immediately answer. He watched instead as Kurt turned to where Woodrue stood on his other side, and Woodrue smiled down at him. They were clearly fond of each other. There was a warmth and an ease between them that set Blaine on edge, his finely honed sixth sense for danger reeling. He did not have any sort of proof, nothing but hunches and a trail of coincidences, but he had learned to trust his instincts. Everything in his gut was telling him to keep that man far away from Kurt.  
  
"Be careful, Master Blaine. There is much to lose."

When Woodrue laid a hand on Kurt’s shoulder and let it rest there Blaine nodded sharply to Luis, his eyes narrowing.

“Not him, damn whatever else. We proceed as planned. Wait for my signal.”


	6. Chapter 6

Things were going far better than even Kurt could have anticipated. Everyone was having a great time and though it was the game of course to play coy, he could tell that he and his partners had caught the interest of many of the leading minds that made up the Botanical Society. Kurt Hummel was pleased, very pleased.

A server walked by and offered them champagne. As he was about to reach for one Jason turned to offer him the glass in his hand. The gentlemanly gesture surprised him but he accepted the glass with a gracious smile. He’d grown extremely fond of Jason’s attentiveness. It was a welcome relief from the usual if nothing else.

“To knowledge,” Gary offered a toast and they all nodded in agreement as they raised their glasses. “May we never quench our thirst.”

 _That_ he was happy to drink to. He drank perhaps a little too fast, the strong taste of the alcohol taking him by surprise. He grimaced at the surprisingly bitter taste and then suffered a nearly instant wave of dizziness.

“Are you alright darling?” Jason asked, lightly grasping his elbow to steady him.

Kurt leaned against Mercedes a moment, fighting the sudden wave of dizziness and the accompanying nausea.

“Kurt?” Mercedes asked concerned, and he waved them both away. The dizzy spell was clearing and soon the nausea would fade he was certain.

“I’m fine. I just got a little carried away I think,” he explained with a self-depreciating grin. “I’ve never had much of a stomach for alcohol.”

“Are you sure darling? We can find a place for you to sit down.” Jason eyed him with concern, rubbing Kurt’s arm where he held it. Kurt felt himself flush with embarrassment at the continued attention. Of all the silly things he could have done to draw attention to himself.

He was about to answer when a familiar voice asked from behind him, “ _Darling_? Is there something you haven’t told me Kurt?”

Kurt shook his head, blushing darker as Blaine joined their group. He shook hands and greeted the others with his usual aloof charm. He even went so far as to kiss the back of one woman’s hand. Kurt had to fight not to roll his eyes even though his smile for Blaine was fond.

“Oh Jason’s just Welsh, he calls us all darling,” Linda explained cheerfully. She poked her husband in the side as she added, “It took forever to get Alec to stop glaring at him every five minutes.”

Kurt and the others laughed in response to that, smiling at the newlyweds. He couldn’t resist tossing in, “It might have helped if Linda didn’t stop to ask him questions she already knew the answers to _just_ to hear his accent.”

“Well it’s a very fine accent if I do say so myself,” Jason quipped, and there was more laughter. The Welshman turned to Blaine and smiled brightly at him as he touched Kurt’s elbow again. “Kurt is an exemplary student. In the lab I often find our roles reversed. I’m afraid there is much that _he_ has taught me in the time we’ve worked together.”

“Brilliant: like his mother.” Gary agreed. “The society is very proud of him.”

Kurt tried to nod demurely beneath the praise but he was sure his smile and the flush to his cheeks betrayed him. He was damn proud of everything he’d done and they all knew it. Mercedes smiled smugly at him and squeezed his arm.

“See, Kurt, what did I tell you?” Blaine winked at him. “Sooner or later people catch on. My colleagues and I at Anderson Enterprises are just happy we could get our stake in before the rat race begins.”

“You’re fortunate in your friends Mr. Anderson. Kurt does speak fondly of you,” Jason commented and Kurt almost swallowed his tongue, mortified that Jason was going to say something horrifically embarrassing- like how much he mentioned Blaine on a daily basis. Beside him Mercedes giggled knowingly and he had to resist the urge to pinch her.

“Blaine’s father was a generous supporter of the society,” Gary explained to the curious onlookers. “He often visited the botanical gardens when they were in operation. He took you there a time or two I imagine?”

“Just once,” Blaine commented tonelessly but Kurt knowing his tells knew the reminder had more effect on him than he would ever let on. “Once was enough. I never was able to forget our star here. I’m proud to call Kurt my best friend.”

He held Kurt’s gaze when he said that and the smile they shared was just for each other.

The moment was broken when Blaine’s butler Luis appeared at his side. He cleared his throat and held out a small white card in his hands.

“Yes, Lu, what is it?” Blaine turned to ask.

“Forgive me Master Blaine, but there is a Mr. Chesterfield on the line,” Luis announced and the reaction of everyone close enough to hear was almost instantaneous. Unease and the feeling of sickness crawled inside of Kurt’s stomach as every last one of the people he needed so badly to impress eyed each other speculatively and began whispering behind their hands. The reporter was even mouthing something into a small recording device. They all wondered of course if the Chesterfield Luis spoke of wasn’t actually _Oswald Chesterfield_ and what Blaine could be doing consorting with a known crime boss.

And things had been going so well. Why this now?! Kurt seethed inwardly the sickness inside turning into something closer to rage.

“A Mr. Chesterfield is looking for me?” Blaine asked with startled confusion. The fact that Blaine was dragging this out and making more of a scene only made Kurt angrier. He knew damn well who Oswald Chesterfield was! He had _told_ Kurt he was in contact with the man. So what was he playing at?

He stared into Blaine’s back, willing him with his glare not to do whatever it was he was doing. Not tonight.

“No sir,” Luis shook his head to the confusion of all. “For one of your guests I believe. A Mr. Jason Woodrue.”

Jason’s eyes widened in shock as all eyes in their small party turned to him. All except for Kurt’s. Kurt’s glare was still  pinned on Blaine.

~*~*~*~*~*~

He was angry.

Years of planning, years of effort, and he was closer to his goal than he had ever been before. He knew he was on the brink of discovery, steps from achieving what the world had always thought impossible and one phone call could ruin it all!

When Anderson’s butler had shut the door he picked up the one on the desk and snapped into it.

“Hello?”

There was nothing but breathing on the other line, and then a decisive click just before the dial tone. He stood there, the phone clutched in his hand, staring at the walls of Anderson’s office.

He would have to do damage control; this could not be allowed to threaten their research. It was too important; they were too close to give up now. There was rage simmering inside him. It made his hands tingle as if they were conductors of some unseen electrical currant. He almost expected to see some sort of spark when he gripped the brass handles of the office doors. So much so that he was surprised there was not some sort of spontaneous combustion when the doors refused to open and rage surged within him anew.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Escaping the party was not so easy when he had an angry girlfriend to dodge and an equally irate best friend, both of which who were determined to pin him somewhere and have words with him. Shortly after Woodrue departed with Luis Blaine had excused himself from the group. It didn’t surprise him at all that Kurt tried to follow him.

“Blaine, I need to talk to you!” Blaine didn’t bother answering him or slowing down as he weaved through the crowd. He was forced to stop however when Rachel suddenly appeared before him- somehow managing to tower despite her diminutive size.

“Blaine Anderson! Do you want to explain to me why-”

“Did you not hear me?! I said I need to talk to you.” Rachel’s mouth dropped open in shock as Kurt grabbed onto Blaine’s arm and he nothing less than marched him past the last ring of guests and out the thick oak doors of the receiving room. Blaine let himself be marched because he was going that way anyway and truthfully Kurt was a bit terrifying in this sort of mood.

They were creating a scene but that was what Blaine had wanted in the first place.

When the doors swung shut on all the whispering tongues and curious eyes behind them Kurt hauled him down the hall towards the study. Behind them the doors sung open again with a dull wave of sound as Rachel came storming out into the hall after them.

“I don’t know where you two think you’re going but you had better come back here right now Blaine!” She hollered as Kurt pushed the study door open and stood there waiting for Blaine to step in. There was a dangerous glint in his eyes that warned Blaine of what would happen should he try and do anything other than step inside that study.

“You were supposed to introduce me to Fredrick Regino!” Rachel’s voice only got louder as she got closer. “You knew how important this night was for me and you’re ruin-”

“For once in your life Berry, pull your head out of your ass, stop thinking the world revolves around you and go away!” Kurt cut in sharply, shocking Rachel into a fuming silence. “Blaine. Inside. Now!”

“No.” Though he was wary to do so Blaine stepped away from his friend, cringing at the look  that crossed his face. He’d known that appeasing Kurt after disrupting his big night was not going to be any walk in the park, but he was beginning to understand that he had severely underestimated how angry he would be. “Both of you need to stop yelling loud enough to bring the house down. There’s a room full of people back there and they don’t need to hear our business.” Kurt’s eyes narrowed and Blaine knew he had said the wrong thing.

“Yes, because heaven forbid the people back there hear something they shouldn’t isn’t that right Blaine!”

“Kurt please, if you’d wait for me in the study? I have something important I need to handle-”

“Like your girlfriend!” Rachel seethed, tired of being ignored. Kurt laughed scathingly in response and the sound of it grated on Rachel’s nerves. She whirled on him with nostrils flared. “There is nothing amusing about the embarrassment I’ve been put through, Kurt! I know you’ve always been jealous of my talent-”

“Oh please,” Kurt sneered.

“-and my relationship with Blaine. I know you’re threatened by it but you have got to grow up Kurt and let go!” Rachel continued as if he hadn’t even spoken. “Why can’t you just be happy that he’s found something special with me?”

Kurt did not respond to that. He turned to Blaine instead with lips tightly pursed and eyes cutting. Blaine didn’t need for him to speak for the meaning in them to be clear. He swept into the study and let the door snap shut behind him, leaving Blaine to deal with his affairs. He’d wait, but Blaine didn’t deceive himself into thinking every second wasn’t going to cost him.

“Well” Rachel harrumphed.  “It’s nice to know that when my boyfriend promises to introduce me to someone important that he’ll be there to greet me and deliver on his promises, and it’s particularly nice to know that when his small minded and envious friends belittle me he’ll come rushing to my defense.”

“The night is young, darling, there’s time enough for introductions.” Blaine grabbed her hand in his, noticing her resistance. “I wanted to walk in with you but business kept me. You know how it is.”

“Yes but Kurt-”

“Is upset, and rightfully so. I told you this benefit was for him and his work.” Blaine tried to keep the irritation he felt out of his voice. Rachel was a lovely woman but sometimes her self-centeredness could be abrasive. “Something happened that isn’t going to make his work easy I’m afraid.”

Rachel to her credit looked concerned by this and let out a small puff of a sigh. She glanced toward the study door with an unfathomable expression.

“I suppose I can understand that.” She allowed. “Nothing felt worse than when our Toto broke in the middle of our production of the Wizard of Oz and completely upstaged me. It was a fiasco.” Blaine chuckled and she smiled up at him. “Will Kurt be okay?”

“Kurt will be fine, but the reputation of one of his teammates has been irreparably damaged.” The way it hurt to say those words was surprising to Blaine, not because he hadn’t expected it to hurt but because he suddenly found the solace of knowing he’d done the right thing was notably absent.

Rachel watched him closely, her expression anxious and sad in a way that Blaine could not quite make sense of.

“What’s wrong?” He asked. “I promise you, Kurt will be fine. He’ll see that it’s better he know the truth now than-”

“I see the way you look at him.” For the first time ever Rachel Berry rendered him speechless.

“Excuse me?”

  
“I have two fathers Blaine, and while I’ll admit that doesn’t mean my gaydar is without fault-” despite his trepidation Blaine couldn’t help but grin at that. “-I can’t deny that I recognize the way you look at him. I only saw it every day over my cereal bowl I feel like an idiot for not seeing it sooner to be honest.”

This was unexpected. Women had broken up with him for all sorts of reasons, infidelity, negligence, callousness, the list was extensive. Always their reasons had merit and always Blaine knew that all reasons led back to Kurt. Never once had a woman seen that so clearly. Blaine took Rachel’s hands in his and cocked his head, smiling fondly at her as he debated on his next step. She smiled at him as if she knew.

“Before you say anything I want you to know that I’ve known for a while now, even if I didn’t want to admit it,” she confessed with a pained expression. “It’s a deliciously tragic sort of romance, falling in love with your best friend despite your own sexuality, and it’s wonderfully romantic that you’ve not acted on it despite your amorous nature for my sake. You and I, we’re special. You don’t throw that away for a passing attraction… right?”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Kurt paced the length of Blaine’s study, fuming so much that he had to hold his arms tightly behind his back in order to keep himself from grabbing things just to have the satisfaction of throwing them.

Why couldn’t there just be one day where things were simple? Why couldn’t he have just one night that was his where he didn’t have to fear that what he wanted would be snatched away from him? Why was it that he had to fear that just because he was happy something was going to come along and wreak havoc with his life?

Truthfully it wasn’t just that yet again he’d been on the cusp of a dream only to have it snatched from him and held aloft just out of reach, it was the fact that Blaine- even knowing how important it was to him- was the one doing the snatching.

Blaine had made his feelings on Jason clear and Kurt was not a fool. A man like Chesterfield didn’t make house calls. Even if Blaine hadn’t done something to encourage the call he had clearly wanted everyone to know about it. Luis knew better than to announce his employers business where others could hear. He knew the importance of keeping secrets.

No, Blaine had wanted to spread suspicion in order to discredit Jason amongst the people it would hurt him the most. It was what Kurt would have done to put pressure on someone he thought was involved in some crime; it was what the Batman would do.

Kurt clenched his fists behind his back and bit back the sting of tears.

Of course Blaine had done it. Blaine always did what the Batman would do. Of course he couldn’t just trust that _he_ knew Jason and trusted him, of course Kurt’s feelings of embarrassment and disappointment meant nothing compared to catching a potential criminal. Not when Batman was on the case, oh no!

A sudden burst of pain throbbed just behind his eyes and he gasped, hands flying up to clutch his skull. He was so distracted by the pain that he didn’t even realize someone else was in the room with him until their hands were on his shoulders and guiding him gently to the couch.

“Are you alright Mr. Hummel?” Luis asked, lowering him to the cushions. His kind eyes were heavy with worry.

Thankfully the pain was receding, but it left Kurt shaken and vaguely nauseous. Still he attempted to smile at the older man not wanting him to worry.

“Just a headache Luis. I’m fine. I just need to sit for a while I think.”

“Very well then Mr. Hummel,” Luis nodded after a moment, going over to the desk by the window and reaching for the decanter of brandy at its edge. “I bet you wish that someday were now and that you had your answers and all your miracle cures.”

Kurt chuckled weakly, trying not to disturb his head any more than he had to. “Yeah I could use a miracle pill right about now…. but who really knows if someday will ever get here.”

“You’ll find what you are looking for Mr. Hummel, of that I have no doubt,” Luis murmured, handing Kurt the glass of brandy and Kurt accepted it gratefully. He did not immediately drink. The champagne from earlier and his adverse reaction to it was too fresh in his mind. Perhaps he was allergic to something in the brand?

“While I’m flattered that you show such faith in me Luis, I very much doubt it after tonight.”

“This?” Luis gestured vaguely with his hand towards the doorway. “This is nothing. Men will clutch their pocket books and women will wag their tongues and life will go on exactly as it would have with or without any interference from us. Master Blaine will not withdraw his funding no matter how the tongues wag. It is your Mr. Woodrue who will have to step lightly now.”

“And Jason hasn’t done anything wrong!” Kurt insisted. “I’ve gotten to know him and he’s truly the most exceptional man in our field and-”

“From what I hear it is you who is exceptional.” Luis poured himself a shot of the brandy. “Together you are managing to do what he could not do alone, yes?”

“Yes we work well together and that’s my point, Luis. I know Jason and I trust him. Is it asking so much that just this once Blaine trust me?”

“No. I suppose it is easy for an ordinary man to trust that those he loves will find their own way.” Luis sipped his brandy quietly, watching Kurt over the rim of his glass. “Or so I’ve heard. I’ve not been in the habit of knowing ordinary men.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

He pounded on the door calling for help until someone finally heard him.

“Woodrue?” Anderson asked, staring at him with a confused expression as his eyes swept the empty office behind him. “What are you doing in here?”

“Your man brought me in here for that phone call. The door must have locked.”

Anderson’s eyes darkened at the mention of that damned phone call. He felt his belly clench with pent up rage. This could not be allowed to happen now! Not when he was so close.

“Mr Anderson I truly have no idea what is going on here I-”

“Oh I’m sure you do though Jason. May I call you Jason?”

He backed into the office as Anderson advanced, face as hard and unreadable as stone and his eyes glacial. The brunettes stare made the hair on his body stand on end. This man had the power to pull the plug on all of their research, to put a halt on everything that he had given his life for and it set his whole body to cold sweats.

“Mr Anderson?”

“Please, call me Blaine.” Anderson rifled through the top drawer of the desk and withdrew a long slender pipe. “We’re all friends here aren’t we Jason?”

He nodded, waiting with cramped belly and dampened palms as Blaine lit the pipe and offered it to him.

“Relax Jason, you’ve nothing to fear from me.” Anderson smiled with his teeth. “Not yet.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

When Blaine returned to the study it was to find Luis was just exiting. He frowned, wondering why Luis was there and not seeing to the guests who were sure to be wondering why their host and their guest of honor had disappeared. There would be talk tomorrow of the night’s strange events but that was of course exactly as Blaine had wanted it.

“Is everything alright Lu?” He asked and Luis nodded shortly, straightening his lapels.

“Everything is in order Master Blaine. Mr. Hummel waits, and not patiently I might add.” Luis nodded towards the door and Blaine tensed, gearing himself up for the conversation he wasn’t at all prepared for. He never felt prepared for dealing with Kurt.

“Should I prepare a bed for you with the dogs, Sir?” Luis asked with not even a hint of irony and Blaine scowled at him.

“Very funny. I don’t think it’s as bad as all that….is it?”

“Oh I was entirely serious Master Blaine.” Luis assured him with a smart little bow. “Good luck Sir.”

Blaine waited at the door, listening to the sound of Luis’ footfalls as they got further and further away. He should go inside and face the music. He had known what the risks were when he decided to put his plan in play and he still maintained that having Kurt angry at him was worth his safety. There was no question for him about whether he’d done the right thing or not, no question at all. He just regretted that he had to hurt Kurt in the process.

Blaine pushed open the door and stepped inside the study, closing it behind him. He immediately spotted Kurt over on the couch staring into a glass of brandy as if it held the secrets to the universe. Kurt looked up as he crossed the room, keeping silent until Blaine sat down next to him.

“Do you have time to talk to me now that you’ve seen to all of your _important_ _affairs_?” He asked and Blaine heard the bite in his tone. He had made him feel dismissed, inconsequential, and that was not his intention at all.

“Kurt, you have to know you’re important to me.”

“Do I?” Kurt took a fortifying gulp of brandy before continuing on. “See I thought so when we drove up and I saw the flowers. I thought you understood what this meant to me and that you had my back. I thought you wanted to share this with me. I thought for one night you cared more about me than-”

“Don’t.” Blaine had to stop him, couldn’t listen to those words come out of his mouth when everything he had done that night was about Kurt, when he had gone against every instinct he had and not only allowed that bastard anywhere near him, but _funded_ their work! “Kurt there is nothing more important to me than you!”

Kurt’s glare melted away, replaced by something too close to anguish for Blaine to take. Blaine reached for his hand and while Kurt didn’t pull away he didn’t respond either. He just let it hang limply in Blaine’s grasp.

“You know you break your promises to me almost every day, especially the one about lying,” he quietly accused and Blaine couldn’t help but feel it like a stab wound.

“When have I ever lied to you?!”

“You just did,” Kurt responded with contrasting coolness. “But I’ve always forgiven you because you honestly believe it’s the truth.”

“That is not fair.” Blaine was on his feet because he couldn’t stand to sit still. He was afraid of what he might do if he was too close to Kurt. “I know you’re upset but you have no right to….Kurt how could you say something like that when every last thing I’ve done tonight was for you?!”

“Connecting my partner with a crime boss in front of our chairman? That was for _me_ Blaine?!” Kurt stood to shout.

“Yes! Because he’s dangerous and you don’t want to see it!” Blaine shouted right back, wanting nothing more than to shake Kurt and make him see sense.

“That was for you! You did it for you, so that you could appease whatever need you have inside to fix everything and be the hero.” Kurt prodded his chest with a finger.

“You don’t know what he is!” Blaine pushed Kurt’s hand away and advanced on him. The slightly taller man wasn’t cowed; he didn’t give a single inch of ground. They were nose to nose now, shouting at each other with words were designed to cut. Kurt had always been particularly good at wielding his tongue when he wanted to draw blood.

“You don’t know him Blaine! A man who makes his entire living off being a liar and a thief says his name and you just-

“Believe it! Like any smart man would do. Think about it! Or are you too busy being flattered by how _brilliant_ he thinks you are.” Kurt’s eyes widened in shock and then narrowed again with anger.

“You’re _jealous_? You have the nerve to be jealous right now?!”

“I’m not jealous!” Blaine had a hold of his shoulders now, seconds away from shaking him, his fingers gripping hard as if they could press sense into Kurt. “I just don’t like him using you and I don’t understand how you can’t see that he is!”

“I’ll tell you what I see, Blaine!” Kurt jerked out of his grasp with a frustrated grunt. “What I see is that I will never be first for you. You will never feel about me the way that I feel about you and I can’t- I can’t anymore!”

The words seemed to echo in the silence, ugly and loud between them as they both caught their breath at the same time and held it. Kurt was the first to collect himself, letting it out in one heavy sigh, relief evident in every line of his body.

“I can’t anymore,” he repeated with finality.

Blaine had known of course there would come a day when Kurt realized that he shouldn’t stay, when he would walk away from him. He’d thought that like every other sacrifice he’d made thus far that this would just be another. That he would cauterize the wound and move forward as he knew he had to and let Kurt be nothing but a scar.

But Blaine had made a tactical error.

Kurt wasn’t something he could tear away. Not just in his flesh and bone but in his very blood. He was turning away and so Blaine turned with him. His body reaching even as his mind still processed the words and their meaning.

An angry snarl twisted his lips, sliding past his gritted teeth as he bared them at a threat without a body to attack or a mind to frighten into submission. So he dragged Kurt to him and pressed their mouths together and pushed the sound of aggression into his mouth until they both groaned around it. Kurt’s hands came up to his chest as if to push but his fingers dug into the fabric of Blaine’s dinner jacket and pulled him closer instead, deepening the kiss.

Kurt’s tongue pushed at his, demanding dominance and he relented control with a desperate whimper. He sucked Blaine’s bottom lip into his mouth, only letting it go with a chastising bite when he’d pulled another desperate sound from him.

Blaine pulled away, just to breathe, needing air and space and to think and to-

Kurt’s hands dug in his hair and pulled him back and Blaine followed. He opened his mouth to invasion of the sweetest kind because he absolutely could not guard himself against it. He was in truth frantic for the taste of Kurt’s mouth, his hands desperate with the need to touch, his whole body shaking with the desire to be touched.

He had traveled places and done things in his short lifetime that some would never do with three and something as simple as passionate kissing- this greedy thing with hot fingers- was a first. He could mimic it to perfection, so well that after a time he had even managed to convince himself that he had experienced something of the measure of it.

He now knew that to have been a very stupid assumption.

Kurt backed them up and when Blaine’s ass hit the edge of his desk his mouth opened on the sound of his surprise. Kurt’s tongue thrust deep inside his mouth and his leg parted Blaine’s boldly. He clutched at the taller man’s waist, needing him closer still, unable to stop his hips from grinding against the leg Kurt had pressed between his.

“Blaine.” Kurt broke the kiss to pant against his ear, rolling his hips against Blaine’s. Someone made a sound, low and needy, but he couldn’t tell which sounds belonged to which of them anymore. There was a roar in his ears to go along with the drumming of his heart.

“Tell me you love me.” The kisses they shared were gentler now, soft and tender, drawn out as their hips slowed to a far more languid rhythm that tantalized both their senses. They both kept their eyes open, staring at the other through lowered lashes as if they expected the other to slip away with a blink.

“You can’t lie to me, not about this.” Kurt whispered between their lips. “I know you do and I’ll wait until you’re ready I will… just one time say it to me.”

Blaine was a lot of things. He had striven to become some of those things in order to do everything he felt he had to do in order to right his wrong.

At his most basic he was a twenty-seven-year old man who had shared a thousand kisses and the beds of more than one or two lovers, and all without ever having felt this sort of need claw in his belly, the burn of want on his skin. He felt them now, and they stripped him bare, left him feeling wrecked and untried, a callow youth in a world that was suddenly upside down.

He should not want, but he did, he always had. He should not long for, but he did, and he always had. His fingers should not fit so perfectly between Kurt’s like pieces of the same machine, but they did and they always would. They should not feel as if they could just leap and fly, overcome everything that stood between them with the force of will alone, but they did and perhaps…perhaps they always would.

Why not? Kurt already knew his secret, Kurt knew everything about him. Why should he spend the rest of his life alone when Kurt wanted to share his life, when he so desperately needed Kurt to share it with? Why should he continue to punish them both when everything they wanted was right there for the taking?

“Kurt?” He pleaded, not for the first time staring into Kurt’s eyes hopelessly lost as to what he should do or how he should move forward.

Kurt leaned forward to kiss him again but he halted at the sound of a sharp knock.

“Blaine? Are you guys still in there?” Rachel’s voice hissed through the door. “Honey, people are getting worried.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, speaking without words and Blaine could only hope that his eyes said the right thing because he had no idea in that moment what the right thing was. He couldn’t think, wasn’t in control, and that all but paralyzed him with fear.

Kurt finally backed away, fixing his tie, and he recognized that familiar look on his face. He was supposed to go and handle his affairs.

Blaine cleared his throat and tried to sound normal. “We’re nearly finished. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

“I think we both need some time to think,” Kurt said once Rachel’s footsteps had receded. Blaine shook his head, not sure what against; he just didn’t want Kurt to walk out that door and close it.

“No, Blaine, I love you…that’s not a surprise to either of us” Kurt insisted, stepping forward to push Blaine’s trembling hands out of the way and do the smoothing of his jacket for him. “But I meant what I said. I don’t want to do this forever. I can’t.”

“I know you can’t,” Blaine admitted his, voice sounding as childish and lost as he felt. “I’m sorry I asked you to.”

“You didn’t. I volunteered.”

“Kurt-”

“Blaine.” Kurt silenced him with a last sweet and lingering kiss. “I don’t regret it. Truly I don’t.. But I need more than this. If you think you can give it…well then you know where to find me. But don’t expect me to wait anymore.”


	7. Chapter 7

_ID: FOUNTx3_

_Week 2, test subject A._

_Continued oral dosages of FX3= 45mg dosage._

_Initial side effects= migraine, nausea, weakness. Ceased approximately 2 days after first dose. Note, do not administer with alcohol._

_Subject A takes well to minor doses without interference from outside substances, blood work needed to confirm necessary changes in cell structure. I project subject A will be ready for_ epidural injections of FX4 shortly.

_~*~*~*~_

_‘And now a story that has got everyone scratching their heads. Are Blaine Anderson and longtime girlfriend pop diva Rachel Berry breaking it off? Is something heating up between Lima’s very own billionaire bachelor and Kurt Hummel? A source close to Berry claims that there was strife between her and Anderson’s childhood friend…”_

“Kuuuurt. You’re on the news again,” Finn called from the living room and Kurt looked up from the carrots he was chopping long enough to shout that the Ben Israel report was not news it was gossip.

Kurt went back to chopping carrots, wielding the knife with more force than probably truly necessary. As expected there had been a whirlwind of talk after the dinner party at Anderson Manor. Thankfully most of the damage to Jason’s reputation was staying within their circle; the media far more concerned with the argument between Lima City’s billionaire bachelor, his best friend, and his girlfriend.

Being friends with Blaine had put him in the public spotlight before but never to this degree and never about a subject that hit so close to home. It wasn’t that he’d expected Blaine to come running after him immediately, if anything more of Kurt expected Blaine to do exactly what he’d done: sacrifice everything they felt for each other in favor of the life he’d chosen. But nevertheless-maybe it was the romantic in him- there had been _some_ part of Kurt that had hoped this time would be different. But Blaine had called him only once to wish him happiness and remind him that he would always be his friend.

Over by the sink Kurt’s stepmother Carol looked up from where she was washing potatoes.

“You okay honey?” She asked, watching him carefully and Kurt nodded shortly. He and Carol got on as well as it was possible for them to. He was a grown man and hardly in need of a new mother at this point. He was grateful to her for the obvious joy she gave his father and he enjoyed spending time with her and Burt every second Sunday for family dinners but she wasn’t the first person he’d confide in.

“It’s just that…” She searched for words. “These reporters have been hounding you pretty hard. Finn’s got Puck patrolling the block just to give us some peace. This has got to be hard.”

“It will die down,” he shrugged, not wanting to dwell on the subject. All he did was think about the fact that he’d walked away from Blaine. If he was going to make good on his intention to move on it would be good to just be able to enjoy his day without some cloud hanging over his head or feeling like he’d gone and lost something too important to function without.

“You know your dad tells me you’ve known Blaine since you were kids,” Carol remarked as she set the bowl of freshly scrubbed vegetables on the table beside Kurt.

“More or less,” Kurt nodded, handing her one of the chopping knives from the holder. “It’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“So he knows you’re….”

“Gay? Yes he knows.”

“Does he know how you feel about him?” Carol asked quietly, not looking up from the potatoes she’d begun chopping. Kurt wavered before answering. He wondered if it was wise and if he really wanted to discuss this with a stepmother he barely knew. He did he discovered. Grown he might be but there was some comfort in admitting his fears and failings to someone older and hopefully wiser.

“How did you know I had feelings for him?”

“Oh, just something in the way you talk about him made me wonder.”

Kurt raised his eyebrows at that, because finding out that he apparently hadn’t done such a good job at hiding his pathetic desperation from the rest of the world on top of everything else was just really rather typical.

“Yes well,” he replied as he sprinkled his finished carrots with some dried rosemary. “I’ve finally realized that waiting around for someone to change when they have no intention of doing so isn’t exactly the healthiest habit.”

“How is Jason?” Carole tried to ask innocently but Kurt knew exactly what she was getting at. He’d had their entire team over for a Sunday brunch or two, and ever since he’d had to field questions from his father about the nature of his relationship with the professor.

“He’s my professor,” Kurt replied, unable to stop the way his cheeks flushed despite having nothing to be ashamed of. There was nothing going on between him and Jason.

“You’re both adults and it’s not like you’re undergrad Kurt. You’re almost thirty-”

“A fact that I’ve been trying to forget, thanks.” Kurt chuckled and she smiled at him, mixing her potatoes in with the rest of the vegetables in the pot.

“Burt seems pretty convinced he’s interested in you.”

“Really?” Kurt snorted as he rummaged in the cupboard for the olive oil. “I couldn’t tell what with the constant questions about him.”

“You honestly haven’t thought about it at all?” Carol asked. “He seems like a nice guy.”

Yes, he had, of course he had. He’d had his reservations in the beginning. How could he not with Blaine’s warning fresh in his mind? But the more time he spent with the other man the harder it became to believe that whatever mysterious thing he was supposed to be involved in actually had any merit to it. What was it that Blaine wanted him to do? Continually judge someone because a man who was a notorious liar had mentioned his name once?

Blaine wouldn’t even tell him why, or what it was he thought Jason was supposed to have done. Jason had told him that when he’d gone to answer Chesterfield’s call the night of the benefit whoever it was had hung up and that he’d never spoken to Oswald Chesterfield a day in his life. Blaine had, and Blaine didn’t trust Jason. Setting him up wasn’t something Kurt would fool himself thinking Blaine wouldn’t do if he thought it was ultimately for Kurt’s own protection.

“He is,” Kurt responded, biting his lip as he considered the man in his mind. “He’s amazingly smart, and so so fearless when it comes to the research. He gets why it’s important and he loves the whole process as much as I do. It’s nice sharing that with someone. Frankly it’s just nice having someone’s complete attention for a change.”

“Well, do you think there’s a chance there?” Carol was unashamedly pleased and asked him eagerly. “Do you know if he’s playing for your team?”

“Jason likes to say he doesn’t have a team,” Kurt chuckled. “He’s had a boyfriend before and a couple girlfriends. He keeps saying it’s irrational to limit your choices.”

“Well that’s great Kurt!”

“Whoa now, let’s not get so excited,” he warned, lightly coating the vegetables in the oil. “I’m not… I’m not _there_ yet. Besides, available or not, Jason _is_ my thesis advisor, and dating him might not be the smartest idea around.”

“Well…” Carole nodded in agreement, even as she continued to smile hopefully at him. “Just don’t rule it out okay? You deserve to be happy Kurt.”

Kurt smiled at her, his heart warming towards this kind older woman who had dropped into his life and been nothing but welcoming. He believed that she meant it and that she, like his father, genuinely wanted to see him happy.

“Thank you,” he mouthed to her. Right now things were hard because he was in the middle of one of the biggest changes his life had ever undertaken. He was getting over his first love, and some sort of depression was only to be expected. But things would get better, he’d find happiness again. He had to believe that. The alternative was altogether too frightening to even consider.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The Iceberg Lounge was an exotic playground for Lima City’s rich and powerful, at least those who didn’t mind overlooking that it was run by a well-known crime boss. Oswald Chesterfield was king of the underworld and everyone knew it, but the rule of course was don’t ask and don’t tell. They came for a night out, something to impress their girlfriends with, or to drink and gamble and they ignored any and all strange interruptions.

Blaine knew that the lounge was just a front for the Penguins crime circuit, half the population knew, and often he brought dates here just because it was the best source of information on what the mobs next move might be. This was where the ones in control: the ones who ran in Blaine’s circle by day and pretended at mediocrity- this was where they played.

Tonight he was alone, and tonight he wasn’t Blaine Anderson but ‘Matches’ Malone. It was an borrowed identity taken from one of the most interesting men he’d ever had the occasion to chase. He was known in this circle for being a con artist and accomplished arsonist. He was good at what he did, never leaving enough evidence behind for a conviction to stick though Blaine had brought him in time and time again. Malone led him on a merry chase, seeming even to enjoy it, an odd sort of villain who avoided violence and had diffused more than one volatile situation that would have led to the loss of many innocent lives.

  
Blaine held a certain amount of respect for him (as did many of his enemies) and took the liberty of assuming his identity whenever there were certain people he needed to talk to who would never speak to Blaine Anderson. It wasn’t as hard as one might think; the right amount of prosthetics, some shadows and some smoke and mirrors and in the dark of the Iceberg Lounge Malone’s own mother wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.

He walked into the lounge wearing a long coat despite it being spring and already quite warm. The two story lounge was lit with black and blue lights, decorated around an arctic theme. There were several posh dining areas, a dance floor modeled after a ship deck, gaming tables, a full bar, and in the center of it all a large pool which was home to seals and several types of penguins. Rising from the center of that pool was a sculpture of an Iceberg. A live band was playing at the top on a small stage.

The man Blaine had come to see was supposed to meet him at the bar. Denis O’Leary, a common thug with a nervous constitution and an ear for things he wasn’t supposed to hear. His tongue was also easily loosened with the right incentive- either it glittered or it hurt. Blaine searched the bar and spotted his informant fairly quickly.

Denis was a short man with a blunt nose and big lips. His coppery hair always stood on end, looking like he’d recently ran a hand through it. He stood at the bar, a drink in hand glancing around him nervously as if he expected someone to jump out of the crowd and grab him.

Blaine walked to the bar and stood beside him, signaling the bartender and not sparing the short man at his side so much as a glance.

“Didn’t think you was coming. Jesus. Another minute and I’d’ve been out,” Denis muttered nervously, eyes flying to the pool in the center of the room as a couple of the penguins squawked loudly.

“I had some things I had to deal with.” Blaine pitched his voice low, speaking softly enough that Denis had to strain to hear over the noise.

“Yeah well, lets make this quick. I thought I saw one of Lavino’s boys and I owe the man some money. Jesus.” Denis cursed, swiveling abruptly as if to run and then swiveling right back. “There’s somethin big in the works. Somethin real big and all the big guys want a piece of it. Lavino, Torson, Chesterfield everybody.”

“A fued?” Blaine asked and Denis shook his head, tossing back the rest of his drink.

“No, goods. Somethin that will change the whole business. Somethin each of ‘em wants to be the man to control. Man who controls the fountain runs the city, maybe even the world.”

“The fountain?”

“Fountain! Yeah the fountain, that’s what the doc is calling it. So one day I come to talk to Torson only there’s this guy there. Says he can make a man stronger, faster, better than he ever was…immortal even. I know what you’re thinkin,” Denis snorted, “Crack pot right? Well the guy showed Torson somethin that made him a believer because he wants in, they all do.”

“The man Torson was dealing with. His name?”

“Didn’t catch a last name, Torson just called him Ja-” Denis never finished, and no one ever heard the shot that killed him. Denis suddenly slumped mid-sentence; a thin line of blood streaming down his forehead as four large men dressed in suits suddenly appeared on either side of them. Two of them moved to shield the body from view and the other two turned to Blaine.

“The boss would like a word with you Malone. I wouldn’t think about-” But Blaine didn’t need to think about anything. He moved quickly, catching the man off guard as he struck him hard in the throat with the heal of his hand, and shattered his knee cap with an expertly placed kick.

He wasn’t going to talk to Chesterfield unless it was on his terms, and his guise would not hold up long under close scrutiny. The moment Denis had slumped he’d reached inside his coat and sent a message to Luis. Now there was nothing to do but escape.

There was muttering and a few shouts from the other guests but Blaine ignored them, grabbing the arm of another assailant and twisting until he heard the crack he was looking for. Even as the man’s scream was echoing in his ears something struck his back and Blaine grunted against the dull pain, thankful for the protective suit he wore beneath the jacket- else he would have been as dead as Denis.

He was reminded of the vulnerability to his head when something sharp slashed his cheek, one of those darts just barely missing him. The knee jerk urge to throw himself away from where he’d felt the pain distracted him enough to allow one of the remaining two men to land a few punches, and the blows were heavy enough to send him lurching into the bar. There was screaming now, but he blocked it out, letting hands grab the back of his shoulders, concentrating instead on everything in his immediate reach. Denis.

He grabbed the protruding end of the dart in the dead man’s skull and let Chesterfields man yank him up and around. He smacked his head against his assailants, riding out the pain and ignoring the burst of hot light behind his eyes as he relied on instinct and memory to guide his aim as he shoved the dart into the side of his assailants neck.

The remaining man had grabbed a bar stool and no sooner had his comrade dropped then he swung the chair, catching Blaine in the side and sending him toppling to the floor. This pain was harder to ignore but he kept himself focused, rolling when he hit the floor and kicking out with his feet, because sure enough his attacker was charging at him and was now close enough to kick. Blaine kicked the man’s feet out from under him and dove on his fallen foe, thankful for once that he was slighter than most of the men he fought against.

Three good punches and a slam of the head to the floor later and he was confident that the man would stay down long enough for him to make it to the exit. A couple more darts struck his back as he ran but it was a crowded room, people were confused and scared, and Chesterfield did not need any unnecessary deaths on his hands. It was once he was outside that would be the problem.

As he reached the door he heard the sound of approaching sirens, right on cue. Luis always delivered. Blaine burst through the doors, running for his life, trying to time things perfectly-even as behind him the doors opened and several men opened fire.

Bullets this time, battering his back, inches away from striking an unprotected area. And there he heard it, the familiar hum of a car engine, the squeal of tires. A black Jaguar came careening around the corner. It roared up the street towards them, the back door flinging itself open.

Ten seconds and then the jump. Six seconds for an unlucky bullet to find him and end his run, three more seconds of screaming pain in his side and then he jumped, diving into the open door as the car slowed only minimally as it passed him.

He banged his head, jarred his whole body, but he made it. He even remembered to pull his legs up as Luis shut the door and sped them off. After that it was everything he could do not to pass out.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“So what’s the diagnoses doctor?” Luis asked and Wes Montgomery looked up at him and rolled his eyes. Most medical students had to deal with friends and loved ones suddenly coming to them with all their aches and pains as if they could perform miracles, but most he’d bet never had to be called in to examine their oldest friend for a fever, only to find that it was more like a case of poisoning, maybe a cracked jaw and most definitely some broken ribs.

According to Luis Blaine had come home in this condition.  He’d helped Blaine undress and had one of the staff run him a bath. It was while bathing that Blaine had begun to sweat and run a high fever eventually slipping into delirium.

“That laceration on his cheek is swelling and there’s considerable drainage,” Wes said, pointing to the nasty cut on Blaine’s cheek. “Which could mean a number of things uncle Lu, but most likely it’s the result of a fast acting toxin. His jaw is fairly discolored but doesn’t appear to be dislocated or broken but I can’t tell you anything more.”

“What does he need?”

“He needs an x-ray for the jaw and the ribs, though I’d bet my first born on them being broken, and he needed poison control about an hour ago. So in conclusion…” Wes sighed, standing up from the bed and pinning his uncle with a firm glare. “This man should be in a hospital just like I tell you every time you call me over here.”

“Blaine doesn’t like hospitals, you know that,” Luis responded and on the bed Blaine groaned, tossing fitfully in his fevered sleep.

“Because they ask questions?” Wes asked, pointedly doing his best to keep his calm. “Becuase he’d have to explain how he managed to poison himself with god only knows what?!”

Luis didn’t answer him, infuriatingly stoic as ever, as he brought a damp wash cloth over to the bed and laid it tenderly over Blaine’s brow.

“How is it uncle Lu, that every time I turn around Blaine manages to nearly kill himself? What is he doing that he has to worry about being injected with something like that. Tell me what’s going on!”

“Will knowing the truth change whether you answer his call Wes?” Luis asked in response to his outburst and Wes faltered, unable to figure out a way to respond that wasn’t going to keep him lost in the dark.

“Of course not uncle Lu, but-”

“But nothing,” Luis waved away his protest. “You do not know, perhaps you never shall. If it changes nothing as you say it does, then be useful and call a physician, someone you trust to keep their silence.”

Wes wanted to say something, anything, about how worried he and the rest of Blaine’s friends were, how unfair it was to be kept in the dark, but he knew there was no point in arguing further. Blaine would keep his secrets. He always had.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_Blaine was standing on an empty street at the edge of a park. Street lamps loomed overhead casting the world in dim lights and shadows and the stars glittered in the sky like diamonds, peaking out between the branches of trees. There was the sound of laughter, throaty and gay, and he turned to find an angel there. A tiny angel with lines etched around her painted mouth and laughing brown eyes._

_This was mother, and it was her birthday._

_“Is it a parade? A barrel of monkeys?”_

_He laughed, clapping his hands together in anticipation as mother made silly suggestion after silly suggestion, teeth clamped tight as they barely held in the surprise. He wanted to shout ‘it’s flowers, flowers that smell like you, just for you the worlds prettiest flower’ but father pressed a finger to his lips._

_So Blaine pressed his lips tightly shut and kept their secret._

_*-*-*_

_“I’ve never encountered this sort of poison. I have no idea what it is or how to treat it. He needs to be admitted to a special facility…. And even then… Well to be frank I don’t think he’d be much better off. This is like nothing we’ve ever seen before.”_

_“Is there any chance at all that he’ll wake?”_

_“He could pull through yes, but it’s not likely and everything that can be done for him has been done. It will be entirely up to him now.”_

_“He will live then. You doubt me doctor?”_

*-*-*

_Everything was dark. He had no voice to call for help and he was surrounded by blood and gruesome faces. They leered at him from the puddles where his face should be, they terrified him and so he ran from them. He ran into the park, ran and ran until everything around him had become unfamiliar, a towering jungle with moist air and strange noises._

_Here there was no blood, here there was no thunder, and no faces. The air was heavy and thick in his lungs and moisture clung to his hair and skin. His sweat ran pink, washing away the blood, and he sobbed with relief finally feeling safe. This was the place he needed to be. Here perhaps he would find someone to help him._

_And then there was a boy, tall and slim, standing beneath a great big tree covered in winding ivy. He opened his mouth to call to him but there was a hole where his voice should be. The boy turned to look at him with laughing eyes the color of a cloudy sky and then he turned and ran._

_*-*-*_

_“I got your message! Is he-”_

_“He’s still with us, though for how much longer I don’t-”_

_“Where is he? I’m so sorry I wasn’t here-I tried to get here sooner but there was an accident at the lab right in the middle-and then the traffic was terrible and- god! I almost abandoned my car and ran here. I’m sorry Lu I-“_

_“Sir, you need to relax. Let me take your coat and-”_

_“I just… I couldn’t stand waiting at every red light thinking he might be leaving and you didn’t think I was coming.”_

_“That would be a foolish thing to think Mr Hummel, and I have never been a fool.”_

_*-*-*_

_Blaine chased the boy desperate to catch him, his heart threatening to burst out of his chest as he pushed himself harder and harder. No matter how hard he ran he could not catch him. Biting back tears he reached, as if he could somehow extend his arms across space and pull the boy to him, and then he was falling, his legs too tired to carry him any farther._

_“Please!”_

_The plea tore out of him, raw and angry as he fell, wishing he could simply disappear into the earth as father had._

_A face appeared above his. A boys face, his boy._

_“Why did you run away?” He tried to sit up but he couldn’t. He was frozen, never to move again. So his boy lay down beside him, curled up against his side like his mother’s cat._

_“I wanted you to catch me. Will you?”_

_“I can’t” Blaine cried, tears leaking out of his eyes as he tried again and again to move only to remain hopelessly stuck. “Help me!”_

_“I don’t know how.”_

_“I’m going to die I think.”_

_“Everyone dies.”_

_“My mother…my father… are they dead?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Am I dead?”_

_“Only if you want to be.”_

_“NO! No I don’t” He cried, and his boy held him tightly, shushing him with a sound like wind through leaves, pressing something light and soft against his cheek, his brow- and when he pressed them to his lips Blaine realized those soft fluttery things were kisses._

_The kisses were as warm as they were soft, and they thawed his frozen limbs as if each were a tiny sun. When Blaine could move them he lifted his arms and reached for his boy’s hand._

_*-*-*_

_“Has the fever broken?”_

_“No.”_

_“Will he live?”_

_“We do not know.”_

_*-*-*_

_“There you are.” Blaine smiled at the boy. “Your name is Kurt.”_

_“And your name is Blaine. You’re going to grow up and be a surgeon like your daddy. Only not anymore. Everything’s different now.”_

_“What will I be?”_

_“What you want to be. A hero.”_

_“Will you be there?”_

_“If you let me.”_

_“I want you to be.”_

_“I know, but those aren’t the same.”_

_“I think I’ve had this dream before.”_

_“You have.”_

_“It’s different now. You never let me catch you before.”_

_“You never knew it was me you were looking for before.”_

_“I’ve been looking for you for a very long time.”_

_“Do you see me now?”_

_“I see.” Though the world around them shimmered Blaine only had eyes for his boy. “There you are.”_

_~*~*~*~*~*~_

_He opened his eyes and immediately they blurred with tears as light stung his irises._

_“_ _There you are Master Blaine, we were beginning to fear you’d done yourself in this time.”_

_Blaine was extremely disoriented but he recognized the sound of Lu’s voice and the scent of…_

_“Kurt?” His voice cracked and rumbled with disuse but as Kurt stepped into view it was the last thing on his mind. Kurt’s face was lined with worry, his exhaustion written in the lines of his body just as relief shone clearly in his eyes._

_“You know going out and trying to get yourself killed because someone tries to leave you is the number one sign of being emotionally manipulative.” Kurt attempted a smile but it wobbled and when Blaine lifted his hand Kurt clasped onto it tightly._

_“I wasn’t- I wasn’t try- ” Blaine’s voice dissolved into dry coughing and Luis appeared at his side again with  a glass of water._

_“Shh, no, forget it I was joking. Drink” Kurt took the glass and placed it against Blaine’s lips. “I know you didn’t try to get yourself so hurt on purpose.”_

_Blaine drank the blessedly cool drink with desperate gulps, his eyes fixed on the man at his bedside. The beautiful apparition from a fevered dream- only no, Kurt was older, solid, and everything real. No less beautiful and no less his. Suddenly there was so much he had to say. He had to say it before the darkness at the edges of his vision encroached, had to say it before another second passed._

_He pushed the glass away and choked on water swallowed too fast._

_“Shhh, Blaine it’s-”_

_“A-ask me again,” he rasped. At Kurt’s look of utter confusion he squeezed his hand insistently and tried again. “No lies this time. Ask me again!”_

_Kurt stared at him a moment more in befuddlement and then slowly a light of understanding entered his eyes. They became glassier, wet with unshed tears, as he gripped Blaine’s hand tighter and leaned close._

_“Do you love me?” Kurt stroked his sweat soaked brow, gazing at him with something like wonder._

_“Yes.” He did, he always had, and now that he said it he could rest._

_And so he did._

_~*~_

_Kurt stared at the hand in his, belonging to the unconscious man in the bed, in stupefied wonder. He’d just been through hell and back, Blaine denying yet again that he loved him and having to walk away for good only to get a desperate call from Luis informing him that Blaine had been hurt and might not wake up._

_It was frightening for Kurt to know that after everything, even knowing how unhealthy it was, at the slightest sign of true distress he would do anything to be at this man’s bedside. Simply because he loved him and he was ever so grateful that somehow Luis had known to call him._

_Luis knew the secret of course but Kurt had never been sure how much the man knew about him and Blaine. It had always bothered him that should Blaine ever be on the brink of death in result of what he did as Batman that he wouldn’t know until either the danger had passed or it was too late. Yet Luis had chosen to call him and Kurt was uncountably grateful for that, whatever the man’s reasons._

_“Is h-he… is he alright?” He asked, voice shaking as he stroked Blaine’s palm in his._

_“He’s only sleeping.” Luis assured him. “I’ve called the physician but never fear Mr. Hummel; I believe our Master Blaine woke long enough just to exhaust himself stating the obvious.”_

“What do you mean?” Kurt asked and Luis made a disgusted sound.

“I have to deal with one young fool, don’t you lose your good sense too.” At Kurt’s continued confusion he nodded towards Blaine. “He has been my charge since his birth. Do you think that I do not know who he loves and who he pretends to? ”

It began to sink in to Kurt that the man he had loved for most of his life, the man whom after disappointment after disappointment he’d been slowly coming to accept would never love him quite enough, had done what he’d always before refused to do.

“He told me he loved me.”

“Yes, I was there. I recall.” Luis smiled at him with amusement. “I also recall the afternoon an eight year old boy came running into the house to inform me that I must schedule him for a date. He told me he’d decided to marry a Mr. Kurt Hummel and that the two of them were going to build a house in the jungle and fill it with flowers, but his papa said dating came first.”

Kurt’s lips parted on a surprised breath, looking back down at Blaine and remembering all to clearly the boy he’d met all those years ago, finding it strangely easy to picture him running into this house and saying those things. He stroked Blaine’s hand again and smiled.

“And what did you say to him?”

“I told him that he had a special date with his parents to get washed for and that we’d arrange something for him and his jungle boy later.” The fond smile on the butlers face faded, his eyes filling with sadness and Kurt was reminded that on the very same day they’d dreamed up a beautiful future reality had dragged Blaine into a nightmare. “Of course later… later was different.”

Yes very different, so much darker and so much harder. Kurt understood Blaine, he knew why Batman consumed so much of him, he didn’t _blame_ Blaine for it but the grim reality was that Batman _did_ consume Blaine and when you loved someone it was impossible to be held apart from them for any reason and not to hurt.

“Luis, I can’t… I can’t get my hopes up again. I know he cares about me, that was never the problem but I have to mean more to him than….”

“What Mr. Hummel?”

 “More than Batman,” he sighed. “And I don’t think I ever will.”


	8. Chapter 8

There were few moments in Blaine’s adult life that weren’t planned and usually those were dangerous moments that led to things like laying in a bed at the mercy of mysterious poisons. Occasionally they involved the man sitting across from him on the veranda, currently cutting up the food on his plate (because he insisted on treating Blaine like an invalid despite his now being able to walk about on his own).

Blaine never planned on telling Kurt, or any man, that he desired him- let alone admit to feelings of love. So there was no plan. He had no idea what they were going to do next or even what he wanted, but he couldn’t regret his admission. Whatever ruin came of it, it meant something to him that he could die knowing that just once he‘d told someone he loved them and it wasn’t a lie. Loving Kurt was about the only truth he knew.

“If you cut that steak any smaller I’ll be able to drink it, Kurt.” He smiled fondly at the other man, not really minding his particular brand of coddling. Being out here, sitting across a table with Kurt on a beautiful summer afternoon, reminded him of a summer a few years ago when Kurt had replanted his garden. He had just seemed to be out and about around the manor at all hours of the day, weaved into Blaine’s home and his day as if he belonged there.

Kurt opened his mouth to reply, a teasing grin blooming on his face, only to fall short on a gasp and for his face to twist up in sudden pain. He dropped the cutlery he was using to cut up Blaine’s food on the table with a clatter and grabbed his head. Alarmed Blaine leaped across the table to steady him as he swayed.

“Kurt!” Kurt groaned in reply and Blaine lifted his head, trying to examine him. Kurt opened his eyes blearily and winced at the sun beaming behind Blaine’s head.

“I’m fine…” he muttered mustering up an unconvincing smile.

“Kurt you about passed out in your seat. I’m calling Dr. Shaye and getting him to look at you.”

“No!” Kurt shouted, the sound cracking like a whip between them, shocking Blaine into silence.  He didn’t know what it was but something about Kurt in that moment actually frightened him. Maybe it was the way his usually immaculate hair was windswept and standing on end from having dug his fingers through it. Maybe it was as simple as the tears in his eyes that seemed to give them an unnatural glint as he glared the force of his resistance into Blaine. Whatever it was he seemed wild to Blaine in that moment, like an animal backed into a corner.

“Kurt,” he said his name softly, as if he really was some cornered beast, “I know you hate doctors but you’re in a lot of pain.”

After his mother’s fight with cancer and his father’s heart attack his first year of college Kurt was definitely not endeared to hospitals and doctors in general, Blaine knew. He thought sometimes that somewhere in his head Kurt thought that if he were the one who was sick and needing care he was somehow failing all of the people who depended on him.

He reached for Kurt’s hand and breathed a sigh of relief when he took it in his and he felt the other man’s tension melting away.

“It’s nothing,” Kurt insisted, softer this time. “It’s just a migraine, Blaine. I get them sometimes when I’ve been overworking in the lab. Hours in artificial lighting and dark rooms peering through a microscope will do that to you.”

“How often do you get them?” He wasn’t completely convinced by that but he didn’t like the thought of Kurt overworking himself in either case.

“Oh they just…” Kurt waved his hand flippantly, searching for words.“… flared up recently. I swear, Blaine. It’s just work and worry. You had me scared out of my mind there for a while you know.”

He couldn’t help the sting of guilt he felt. He’d dragged Kurt back here after all, pulled him back in when it had been so smart of him to walk away, when he deserved something better than a man who wanted but ultimately could never love him like he needed.

“Stop that.” The order came direct and firm as Kurt smartly placed his plate in front of him. “Don’t diminish how much I care about you by guilt tripping yourself because I dared to want to be with you when you might not wake up. Why would I want anything else?”

“I know and I’m glad that you came. You made me want to wake up.” There was no way Blaine could explain what he meant by that, not without getting into dreams and hallucinations, but he knew it with certainty. He remembered being frozen, thinking he was dying and resisting. In his fevered dream Kurt had held him, melted his frozen limbs with kisses. Blaine looked to him now and Kurt met his gaze, watching him intently. His eyes were so bright and still that incredible shade of too blue.

Kurt’s lips curved into a smile and Blaine followed the movement. Was it normal for lips to look that plush? They were colored and slightly slick looking as if someone had thoroughly kissed him. The harsh jab of jealousy he felt in his gut at the impossible thought was decidedly uncomfortable.

“Do you love me Mr. Anderson?” The question didn’t surprise him at all. It seemed to make sense, truly the only thing for Kurt to ask, and the smile dancing on those gorgeous lips of his was the most playful powerful thing he’d ever witnessed.

“Yes,” he struggled to answer, not because he had any hope of resisting but because it was suddenly so very hard to breathe.

“Very good,” Kurt leaned forward and Blaine met him, as drawn as a moth to flame. The barest touch of Kurt’s lips against his sent a tingle and a shock through him and he gasped. Kurt’s electric blue eyes devoured him and then his lips were claiming his, soft but so so insistent.

Was it normal for everything to burn like this? Blaine felt as if someone had lit a flame in his chest and he was being scorched from the inside out in a heinously pleasurable way.

When he pulled away Kurt’s eyes were wide and stupefied and Blaine wasn’t much better off. They both seemed to fall dizzily back into their chairs.

“Well… um I mean that’s…” Kurt flushed and took a hasty gulp of his lemonade. When he’d swallowed and set his glass down he visibly gathered himself and said, “I’ve been wanting to kiss you like that for ages so I’m not sorry for it but Blaine we need to talk about this.”

“A-about?” He was honest to god stammering. He needed to think, to breathe, to get control back- something! He blindly reached for his own glass trying to get the room to stop twirling. He’d never understood what people meant by the phrase a drugging kiss but if this was what kissing Kurt was going to be like he was in deep trouble.

“Us,” Kurt answered as if that should be obvious. “You know how I feel and you know what I want. Nothing has changed.”

Yes it had! Some voice in Blaine shouted in response. Everything had changed. Kurt had stripped him naked, stolen his control and drugged him with something as simple as a touch of lips. How could he not see that every last thing that mattered to Blaine had changed?

Let him walk away.

That was what he knew he had to do. It was the only conceivable option that would end well for Kurt. The temporary pain of moving on might lead to future happiness and was better than the temporary happiness of burning brightly together. That would only end in them imploding like stars.

Let him walk away.

And that was exactly what Blaine couldn’t do. Not when he was naked, not when Kurt had control and he wanted more of whatever poison he shot through his veins with his kisses.

“Yes it has,” he said. At Kurt’s raised eyebrow he reached for his hand. “Let me show you. Let me take you on a date. We’ll go anywhere you want, do anything you want…”

“And it will be about us?” Kurt finished, not quite daring to hope.

“Just us” he promised. And this time he knew it was a promise he couldn’t afford to break.

Kurt beamed at him; such stark want in his gaze that had Blaine been standing it probably would have brought him to his knees.

“Some other time, I think I want that outing where you surprise me.”

_~*~*~*~*~*~_

_ID: FOUNTx3_

_Week 3, test subject A._

_Increased oral dosages of FX3= 65mg dosage._

_Note: return of initial_ _migraine, nausea, weakness._

_Blood work is essential. Subject A might…._

_*_*_*_

He halted in his typing, the phone in his pocket vibrating furiously and breaking his concentration. Blaine Anderson, he read the name on the screen and his fingers tightened around the device until his knuckles were bloodless.

One day, he promised himself, one day this man would be at his mercy and he would crush him.

“Hello” he answered, voice shaking with anxious nerves.

“I’m still waiting Woodrue.”

“Mr. Anderson please I must insist-”

“You’re not in a position to insist anything. We had an agreement. I want those files Woodrue and I want them yesterday.”

Yes. He was going to enjoy destroying Blaine Anderson and all of the others who had stood in his way. He would squeeze out every last drop of his blood and crush him till there was nothing left of his bones but dust- or something to that accord. He wanted to chuckle at himself, after all what a silly thing to think? What a wonderfully silly pretty little think to think and even better to do when the power to do so was his. The thought made him smile. He was grinning even as he whimpered into the phone.

“Alright…. Just please, give me time.”

_~*~*~*~*~_

“Kurt?”

He started awake; realizing after a moment of confusion that he’d fallen asleep slumped over his desk. He was pretty sure there was a mark on his face from where his cheek had rested against his watch. He flushed with embarrassment and rubbed at his cheek as Jason smiled down at him.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized fighting a yawn. “I’ve been up so late what with the recent developments and-”

“Relax darling, you’re not in trouble.” Jason stroked his shoulder and sat at the edge of his desk. His eyes raked over Kurt’s slumped form, taking in the unusually pale- or rather paler than normal- cast to his skin and the lines of exhaustion on his face. “You look terrible.”

“Gee, thank you. My debilitating migraine is gone, thank you so much for asking.” Jason grinned at his response but the light of concern in his eyes never faded.

“You’ve a brilliant mind Kurt but I need you at your best so it’s important that you take care of yourself.”

“Ah so it’s true,” Kurt stretched and winced as his back popped. Sleeping over his desk was not a habit he wanted to get in to. “All the boys want me for my research.”

“Oh is that all?” Jason’s eyes roamed over his form again, slower this time and Kurt found himself flushing though he sincerely wished he wouldn’t. He’d like to think that being almost thirty the possibility of another man looking him over and liking what he saw wouldn’t reduce him to schoolboy levels of embarrassment but then again Kurt liked to think a lot of things that weren’t unfortunately true.

“His research brings all the boys to the yard!” From across the room at second work station Alec looked up from his note taking to sing at them. Jason started immediately to chuckle and Kurt tore an empty sheet out of his journal just to crumple and throw at him.

“Never do that again.” The paper projectile bounced off his shoulder and Alec waggled his eyebrows. Kurt deepened his glare. “I don’t want to have to be forced to put you down Holland.”

“Don’t do that, I need him,” Linda said as she strode into the room stacks of paper hot off the printer in her hands. “I’ve got your results back Kurt. ‘Machine was going nuts about a minute ago. Make sure to double check for irregularities this time.”

“Speaking of which,” Jason rapped his knuckles on the wood of Kurt’s desk as if a thought had just come to him. “Can you stay later tonight? I need to run some blood tests and would like your input.”

“What are you doing with the blood?” Alec asked, looking up from his desk again and Kurt blinked away the last of his tiredness and tilted his head towards Jason, wondering much the same thing.

“I’d like to avoid blowing up another lab rat and work out just what in our current serum is damaging the cells,” he explained and Kurt nodded, feeling a surge of excitement. Of course, and it was really rather brilliant of Jason to take the initiative. He’d begun to think of doing the same himself only that morning.

“Yes, I think that’s exactly what we should focus on next but in that case I think you should use mine,” he said and Jason, ever quick on the uptake, nodded in agreement. Alec however was still confused.

“Does it matter whose blood?”

“Kurt’s blood type is O,” Linda reminded him, picking up on their thought process.

“Ah, and considering that subject X was also type O, his is our best bet. I’ve got it.”

“Yeah,” Kurt nodded. “You’ll want to eliminate as many variables as you can Jason and mirror subject X as closely as possible.”

“Brilliant, so I can count on you then?” Kurt felt the rush of excitement in his veins trickle to a stop as he was reminded that he did in fact have somewhere to be that evening. But the place he had to be he wouldn’t miss being at for anything and he felt a different sort of anticipation settle over him.

“Um no actually, Blaine and I are having dinner tonight.” All eyes turned to him and again with the flushing. “We can draw up some samples before I leave though and Alec can assist you.”

“You’re going out with Anderson?” Jason asked something in his tone a lot cooler than his usual affable manner.

“Yes I am.” Kurt didn’t bother explaining himself. What for? They all knew he and Blaine were old friends, and thank god for that otherwise they’d be up a creek as far as their finances went.  Understandably since the benefit Blaine had thrown for them Jason had been rather edgy about the subject of Blaine whenever he came up.

“Ooh gossip time,” Linda crowed. “Business or pleasure?”

“You want to get those samples now?” He ignored that gaping trap in favor of what they were really here to focus on. With Blaine suddenly forgotten Jason nodded eagerly and they both rose, excited to begin a new stage in their experiment. Linda chuckled as they left the office shouting at their backs.

“So its pleasure then?”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_ID: FOUNTx3_

_Week 3, test subject A._

_Continued oral dosages of FX3= 65mg dosage._

_Note: Blood work indicates that Subject A has undergone rapid change in cell structure and hormone levels. DNA appears to be altering efficiently with minimal side effects. Close monitoring is needed, immediate introduction to FX4 is essential. FX4 must be injected, which will require close contact. We now commence the final stage of testing._

_~*~*~*~*~*~_

To say that Kurt was excited about going on a date with Blaine was such a gross understatement it’s better just not to say it.

This was the first date he’d ever had that mattered . This was more then them hanging out together, more than them doing everything a couple would do and halting just before the point of no return. This was a date about them, for them, because finally finally Blaine wanted him more than he wanted anything else. To know that even with all of his reasons and his demons that Blaine would risk his carefully laid plans to be with him, well it was the reason his heart was in his eyes when he answered his door to find Blaine standing there like something out of a dream.

“Flowers Blaine?”

“Aren’t flowers obligatory on a first date?” Blaine grinned at him. “I got them because they speak to you, and you’ve been teaching me all about what they say.”

“Cape forget-me-nots,” Kurt took the bushel from him as gingerly as if he were handling glass. It was not strange to him at all that he felt as if he could feel energy, faded and distant, coming from the stems. It felt as natural to him as breathing, as natural as the whisper of petals against his cheeks as he pressed his face close and drank in their sent.

 “A little jungle boy once told me they were his second favorite,” Blaine stepped closer and his heart thudded in his chest. “He also told me they said true love. I wanted to say that to you.”

Kurt was in trouble. He knew that with gravity as he leaned down and they shared their first kiss of the night, as they crushed his beautiful flowers between them and their scent filled the air around them like a perfume and everything in his blood warmed. He wanted this man with everything in him, wanted to wrap him up in vines and lay with him on a bed of grass until they became dust and a part of the earth.

“Kurt,” Blaine groaned against his lips, stepping back with a wobbly step.

“Yeah…” Kurt reluctantly agreed, trying to stamp down the unfamiliar hunger clawing at him. “We should go if we’re going to make it to dinner.”

Blaine only nodded, looking so punch drunk that Kurt couldn’t help the delightful thrill of accomplishment that went through him. There was no questioning that seeing how much Blaine desired him made him feel powerful. It was really the most delicious feeling.

When he climbed into the passenger seat of Blaine’s black jaguar he was surprised to see a classic style picnic basket in the backseat and several folded blankets.

“A picnic dinner?” He asked with more surprise than censure. “So rustic of you, I didn’t think the billionaire bachelor went in for things like that.”

“He doesn’t,” Blaine agreed pulling out of the lot. “But I do, and this is _our_ date. We’re going somewhere both of us are free to be exactly who we are.”

“Are we going to the river?” He couldn’t help a slightly dreamy sigh. “Opening myself up to embarrassment here but more than one teenage dream of mine involved me you and picnics by the river.”

“Oh really?” Blaine chuckled and Kurt elbowed him in the side. When Blaine shook his head and said, “No not this time.” Kurt was appeased because his insides started jumping over the fact that Blaine expected there to be _other_ times.

“Okay, so…” he took a shaky breath and Kurt watched him, still unable to get over that he could make Blaine Anderson a mess. “I thought this would be easy. I mean I go on dates all the time. Shit not that this is just like all the others. This is so _so_ different and that’s the problem…”

Kurt bit his lip in an effort to hide his grin, letting Blaine babble on.

“So I planned this all out and the idea is to show you that nothing moves me like you do Kurt… you’ve changed things for me since day one. So I have music for us to listen to when we park the car but I didn’t want you to think it was some slick move… it means something to me and I mean every word.”

“Noted,” Kurt smiled at him and Blaine’s answering smile was full of relief. He was confused a moment later when Blaine dig in his pocket and pulled out a long black piece of silk.

“Here. I need you to blindfold yourself.”

“Pardon?”

“Trust me. I just, I really want this to be a surprise.”

 Despite everything trusting Blaine was easy. Kurt always had, even with the numerous let downs. He trusted Blaine with the things that counted: his safety, his happiness and most avidly his heart. He let the blindfold settle over his eyes without so much as a complaint and tied it tightly behind his head.

Robbed of his sight Blaine’s hand on his knee felt heavier and hotter than it might have otherwise and he took it in his hands and stroked it. The sounds of traffic and Blaine’s breath in the dark were soothing, and the scent of his cologne tantalizing to his nose.

When the car slowed to a halt and did not start up again in the usual space of time allowed for a light change he sat up straighter, straining to hear anything that might give him some clue where they were.

He heard Blaine moving, heard what sounded like him unzipping something and then the sudden blast of sound from the radio. Then it fell silent again and it wasn’t until he heard the soft hum of male voices on a [CD track](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FXxyY49qio) that Blaine leaned over and touched him again. He felt his fingers, everything soft and rough at once, gently stroke his cheek as the car filled with the sounds of an acapella boys choir.

He knew the song from his childhood, and he knew the boy singing lead without having to be told. He’d know this man in any form.

 _I walked across an empty land_ _I knew the pathway like the back of my hand. I felt the earth beneath my feet. Sat by the river and it made me complete…_

The music in the car got louder and louder, almost uncomfortably so, but he understood why as he felt his car door open and the Blaine of now  took his hand and guided him out of the car.

He felt the wind on his cheeks so he knew they were still outside. He felt grass beneath his feet and there was a strange musty smell in the air that while not unpleasant was certainly interesting. Blaine led him forward, guiding him over unseen obstacles and Kurt’s curiosity only got keener and keener as he heard something that sounded like wings flapping overhead.

_I came across a fallen tree. I felt the branches of it looking at me. Is this the place we used to love? Is this the place that I’ve been dreaming of?_

And that’s when he knew. His breath caught and he was straining to see even before he felt Blaine’s hands at the back of his head and the blind fold slipped away.

Kurt hadn’t been back to the greenhouse since the day they’d closed its doors. It was too painful in the midst of losing his mother and too agonizing to think about it being cleared out and torn down. But it hadn’t been.

Amazingly the building was still standing. Musty and dirty exactly as if everyone who had worked there had left one day simply never to return. What hadn’t died had thrived and overgrown and it was more than obvious by the soft sound of scurries and the occasional flap of wings that animals had found their way inside.

His childhood playground really had become a jungle. It pulsed with life and Kurt felt the thrum of it in his blood like he was part of it and he closed his eyes and shivered.

_This could be the end of everything…. So why don’t we go talk about it somewhere only we know. Somewhere only we know._

“I don’t understand… how…. Why wasn’t it torn down?”

“I couldn’t let them” Blaine whispered behind him. “After that day at the theater, when I saw you again I couldn’t let them. This was the only building still standing and I begged my uncle not to let anything happen to it.”

Kurt turned to him, his heart in his throat as he replied past the lump there “I know your uncle Blaine… you must have… it must have cost you something.”

“Nothing,” Blaine insisted taking his hands. “Nothing compared to what this place means to me.”

 He wasn’t sure which of them pulled the other into their arms but they seemed to melt together naturally as if they were simply separate ends of the same vine coiling together. Both of them had been waiting for this moment their entire lives and the way they sighed against each other’s lips was all about a breath of relief.

That night they had the souls of children, feeling adventurous and invincible as they laid out on their blankets in the middle of a wild jungle. They laughed as they fed each other from their basket, as they recounted the days of their youth and the stumbling steps that had brought them to this single moment of perfection.

“There was a boy, he sang in show choir at Dalton with me and we ran track together…” Blaine stroked the angles of Kurt’s chest, fingers ghosting over a dusky nipple where it peeked out of his halfway to unbuttoned shirt. “But when I closed my eyes and tried to picture what I wanted I always came back here. I didn’t understand why until I saw you again.”

“You had no business chasing some other boy Mr. Anderson.” Kurt’s voice mirrored his fingers, playful as they danced up hip his arm and over his bicep. “You were engaged. I remember, we made vows and we sealed it with a kiss. In some tribes we’d be considered as good as married you know?”

“Really?” Blaine pressed his grin to the fleshy part of Kurt’s shoulder. “Well what is the consequence of infidelity? Stoning?” He nuzzled Kurt’s neck and took in a deep drag, pulling every last bit of his scent he could into his lungs.

“Well,” Kurt panted, arching up against him. “The Mandan Indians used to punish the betrayal of a sacred oath by slicing open the scrotum and robbing a man of the seed to plant another generation.”

“Okay _why_ would you say something like that?” Kurt laughed at the look of absolute revulsion that crossed Blaine’s face. “Suddenly the desire to have you anywhere near my dick is gone.”

Blaine rolled away from him with a disgruntled sound and Kurt simply followed, rolling to straddle him even as he continued to laugh at him.

“You love me.”

“Yes,” Blaine agreed answering merriment creeping into his gaze as his lips twitched around a smile. “Yes, Mr. Hummel I do.”

“Even if I do bad things and make you cry?” Kurt nipped his ear, still biting back breathless laughter.

“Yes, Kurt, even then.” The kiss they shared was sweet and tender, the taste of fulfillment even sweeter. Kurt hummed with pleasure, content with the soft nibbles of Blaine’s lip but then his fingers were under his shirt and they were tickling him mercilessly.

“But if you come near my scrotum with anything sharp all bets are off.”

Kurt threw back his head and laughed, writhing like an eel trying to escape Blaine’s hands, and his heart raced with unfettered joy. His wasn’t the only one.

Despite their touching and their kissing they did nothing more than that. They touched, they kissed and they held onto each other both of them reveling in each second as if it was precious and about to be snatched from them. They built up passion between them and let it recede only to build it up again and again until they were desperate for the finish.

Skin to skin they tangled together. Their hands touched the other where they most desired, where it had always been most forbidden and they seemed to rub in tandem, to be breathing on the same breath as they pushed and they strained toward relief. Kurt found it first shouting his relief on a stuttering gasp that Blaine swallowed with lips teeth and tongue even as his body jerked and his come spilled between them.

Kurt couldn’t speak for a moment, didn’t want to speak, but eventually his awareness of his beautiful clothes being strewn about in the dirt and his own pressing need to feel it all again (only fuller and finished this time got) the better of him.

“I can’t believe you didn’t bring lube and condoms.”

“It wasn’t about seducing you. This date was different,” Blaine insisted with something that actually sounded like regret and Kurt laughed. He understood his sentiments perfectly.

“Okay. We’re going to clean up as best we can and then we’re going back to your ridiculously huge bed and you are fucking me until either you drop from exhaustion or I pass out.”

“Kurt!” Blaine gaped at him and Kurt rolled his eyes.

“I have been dithering about waiting for you to pull your head out of your ass, Anderson, for about twenty years now.” Kurt pushed insistently at his thigh where it was draped over him. “The time for shy and virginal passed me ages ago. Get up.”

“Shit it really has been twenty years,” Blaine murmured as if this revelation was only just sinking in. “But you can’t count all twenty. You weren’t thinking about sex when you were seven.”

“Fine,” Kurt allowed with a grin. “Fifteen then.”


	9. Chapter 9

There was a race: the race to get home, the race to a room, the race to bear skin and the racing of their heart beats as the finish line appeared just on their horizon. They‘d laughed when they’d come flying into the house and the expression on Luis’ face was alternately startled and then fond amusement as Blaine had hollered over his shoulder that they were not to be disturbed.

To Blaine Kurt looked like some creature out of a fairy tale: leaves and grass clinging to his hair from their time in the old green house, his skin soft and white as porcelain in the amber glow of candles that surrounded Blaine’s bedroom. He’d never been more thankful for Lu, because while it hadn’t been in his plans to take Kurt to his bed that evening Luis had certainly prepared for it.

Kurt under candle light was impossibly beautiful, Blaine rendered nearly speechless under the stroke of his hands and press of his lips against his heated limbs. He was fevered, hot, and flushed, almost as if he’d encountered another strange toxin and was in the throes of a death fever. It was a sickness of the blood, of the heart, and the only relief allowed him was Kurt and more of his poison. Like a man suffering from too much drink he craved the solace of another. 

There was nothing but Kurt in his eyes, in his arms, under his hands and under his skin. It was petrifying. So much of himself he’d constructed with such careful planning. He was his own creator having built himself up from ash with fine bricks and polished steel, only to be decimated by this blue eyed artesian whose sole aim it seemed was to set him ablaze and return him to the dust. 

So though he trembled like an animal sick with fear he pushed inside of Kurt at his urgency, reached into the flames and invited their consumption because this _this_ taste _,_ this man, this death was welcome. He had no greater wish than to crumble at this man’s mercy, no greater desire than to see what new thing would be born from his ashes.

“Yes.” Kurt undulated to his rhythm, his nails piercing crescents into his skin, something like a growl tearing from his throat as Blaine buried deeper. “Yes yes yes.”

He sounded so broken, breaking more by the minute and desperate to shatter like glass.

“Please... oh please…” A mewling cry, high over the thunder of their hearts and Blaine couldn’t do anything but drive harder, faster, diving headlong into a beautiful wonderful ruin.

~*~*~*~*~

Blaine looked like he’d had some sort of run in with a rabid dog, Kurt mused to himself in the morning light. His skin was littered in bruises from where Kurt had kissed and bit, and  scratches from where he’d pressed and dragged his nails.  He should possibly feel ashamed but he didn’t. He couldn’t when he felt the fullness of satisfaction curling through his body.

He was undeniably smug that the beautiful man in his bed- well Blaine’s bed but he certainly hadn’t let _that_ little detail deter him- was sprawled out in an exhausted sleep because of him. He‘d been a virgin only a day before but as it turned out he was something of a heavy task master in bed. Even he had been a bit surprised by his sexual appetite, but in his own defense he had a lot of time to make up for whereas Blaine _didn’t_.

Thinking about Blaine’s past lovers, even if they were women, made something hot and sharp twist in his gut. He wrapped a finger around a loose curl of Blaine’s hair, wondering to himself if Blaine had ever felt that same insatiable desire- that same rattle in his bones- as he had with Kurt the night before.

His lips twisted into a snarl and he pulled Blaine’s head back by his hair and bared his neck. The sting of pain in his skull was enough to wake Blaine and some other time Kurt might have marveled at the ease from which he sprung from sleep to wakefulness. This time he was too preoccupied with biting the skin at Blaine’s throat just above where his pulse was strongest, hard enough to bruise but not quite enough to draw blood. As he sucked against his skin Blaine shivered and melted against him with a groan and Kurt all but purred.

“You’re mine you know that?” Blaine nodded and Kurt warmed, snuggling closer to him and soothing the mark he’d left on his neck with kitten licks. “Very good, Mr. Anderson.” Blaine chuckled warmly and pulled Kurt closer to him, watching him with a heady mix of wonder and longing.

“Your eyes are very green in the morning Mr. Hummel.”

“Are they?” Kurt murmured, he’d never noticed before but it rather delighted him that Blaine had.

“Yes, and very bright. For a moment when I woke I thought they were glowing at me,” Blaine watched him intently as if waiting for some response from Kurt or some remarkable thing to happen and Kurt shrugged.

“Green eyed monster of jealousy maybe?”

“Jealous?” Blaine questioned and Kurt nodded, that hot thing twisting inside again.

“Yes, Blaine, jealous. The past is the past but now is about us. You’re mine now and I’m a one man show. If you’re with me, then you’re with me. No one else, not even some fake girlfriend, gets to touch you.”

Blaine turned over his words and Kurt waited, anxiousness creeping in for the first time in hours. What if Blaine wasn’t ready to come out to the public? It would mean a lot of new attention thrust his way, attention he couldn’t afford, and what if he thought it was better to keep up his pretense of casual and perfectly straight flings?

That twisting in his gut became a burn and without so much as thinking Kurt laid his hand against Blaine’s chest, felt his heart- thought about who it should belong to- and felt it thudding in response.

“Blaine, you beautiful broken little thing.” His lips hovered over Blaine’s and Blaine watched him with the quiet sort of captivation Kurt was coming to covet. His lips curved into a smile. “Open to me beautiful. Don’t deny me.”

That would be a mistake; Kurt knew it like he knew what he would do if this thing he had been waiting for forever were ever taken from him. No one was taking this from him, not even Blaine. When Blaine closed the slight distance between their lips, opening to the invasion of Kurt’s tongue he all but purred.

 ~*~*~*~*~

ID: FOUNTX3

Notes: Upon opening the lab this morning and completing another analysis of the blood collected from Subject A, I discovered a dramatic leap in his evolution. In 24 hours the amount of mutated cells in his blood has tripled. While the blood in lab is kept fresh and is only a day out of body, my data would suggest that mutation out of body is slowed, meaning the mutation within Subject A is possible double what has occurred in lab.  The mutated cells have begun to attack those that remain unaltered by FX3 Without injection of FX4 and a successful alteration of DNA, Subject A will die. This cannot be allowed.

~*~*~*~*~

“You know we have a perfectly talented cook employed here at the manor, Mr. Hummel” Luis reminded him even as he set two plates on the counter in wait for the breakfast Kurt was busily cooking up.

“Tina can have a much needed morning off then and I can make sure you and Blaine at least get one meal that isn’t swimming in trans fats.”

“Tina makes perfectly acceptable food,” Blaine, walking into the kitchen after having showered and dressed, remarked with a pout. He wrapped his arms around Kurt’s waist and peered over his shoulder to watch him stir up batter. “Pancakes?”

“Whole wheat crepes with strawberry sauce-Blaine!” Kurt elbowed him out of the way when the sticky fingered little thief tried to get his hands on the bowl of sweet sauce.  “Go sit down or something, shoo.”

Both of them were grinning as Blaine relented, pressing a smacking kiss to his cheek before leaving him in favor of the cup of coffee Luis had waiting at the table.

“If I haven’t told you today Lu that I love you, I’m telling you now,” Blaine sat with a contended sigh. When he reached for the television remote Luis smacked his hand away and Blaine started with disgruntled surprise. “Is there some objection you have to me watching the morning news Luis?”

“Yes, Master Blaine there is.” Luis pried the device out of his hand when Blaine would have insisted.  “I thought you’d like to have a pleasant morning with your Mr. Hummel and myself after from what I, not to mention the entire east wing, gathered was an exceedingly pleasant evening.”

Something clanged over by the stove and Blaine knew without having to look that Kurt was silently laughing.

“Yes, “Blaine refused to give the old man the satisfaction of seeing him blush. “Last night was lovely. What does that have to do with-”

“-You and your daily ritual of heaping guilt on yourself for not being everywhere at once and stopping every fire, theft, and mugging in this city?” Luis scoffed. “Only everything. You’re not god, Master Blaine. You can’t save them all and even he rested on the seventh day. Let it be. Find out some other day what happens when Batman takes a night off.”

Disquiet settled over Blaine then as his mind filled with a hundred scenarios, all more tragic than the last, of just what could have occurred in Lima overnight while he was wrapped up in Kurt’s arms. He knew Luis had a point.  There were police, there were firemen, there were people whose _jobs_ it was to prevent these things and where they failed he didn’t.  That was the crux of the matter. That was what he couldn’t allow himself to forget.

“Blaine?” He blinked, surprised to find a hot plate of food set in front of him and Kurt kneeling at his side. “You don’t regret it do you?”

Should he? Most definitely. He didn’t have to turn on the news to know he’d failed someone the night before. But did he?

“No, Kurt I don’t.” He leaned down and kissed him softly. “I won’t ever regret you.”

There was a buzzing sound that in the back of his mind Blaine recognized as coming from the front door but Kurt’s lips were soft and the joy emanating from him so very addicting. Kurt’s skin under his hands was flushed and… clammy? Blaine frowned, pulling away from Kurt’s insistent lips as he pushed aside sweat slick hair and glanced fearfully over his too red face and too bright eyes.

“Kurt you’re burning up.”

“Really? I feel okay.” Kurt bit his lip and smiled whimsically. “Kind of dizzy. But I usually feel that way after kissing you.” Despite his worry Blaine smiled in response.

“You’re adorable Mr. Hummel. Have I ever told you that?”

“Mmm, yes, many times,” Kurt smiled and reached for him again. “Please kiss me.”

Blaine leaned down to comply but the fine trembling he felt in Kurt’s hands and then traced to his arms and to the rest of his body had him drawing back again, his worry turning to cold fear in his gut.

“Sweetheart you’re shaking.”

“Yes,” Kurt sighed looking put out by Blaine’s insistence on keeping doing everything other than kissing him. “I’m so tired I could pass out. I think all that overtime at the lab has started to catch up to me. And we didn’t really sleep much last night either.” Though Kurt didn’t look upset about that last Blaine frowned, scooping him up and pulling him into his lap.

“You’re not going to work today,” he decided, no room for disobedience in his tone. “I’m tucking you into bed and you’re getting proper rest until I’m satisfied that you aren’t going to collapse on me.”

“Blaine I can’t!” Predictably Kurt was resistant. He tried to stand, but Blaine kept a firm grip on his waist. With a huff Kurt shifted in his lap so that he could look at him as he said, “We’re at a critical stage of research. The serum is unstable right now- it kills everything, not just the cancerous cells- but Lila- subject X, the girl who survived when her entire village was struck down- she had type O blood, like mine. Jason thinks the key is in the blood-”

“You’re not telling me you gave that man your blood are you, Kurt?”  He didn’t mean to sound so angry, but the thought of Woodrue having anything of Kurt’s didn’t settle right with Blaine. Not when Woodrue had been so obsessed with Nora’s cell regeneration serum for so long, not when those who called themselves lords of the underworld knew his name, and not when they were all vying to get their hands on something called _The Fountain-_ something a man whose name began ever so coincidently with J had promised them would make them something close to immortal.

“Yes, I gave _that man_ my blood, Blaine.” Kurt sounded exasperated and close to anger. “He’s my professor, he oversees everything I do in there and more importantly he’s my partner. He wants this as much as I do. We’re so close, Blaine, I can taste it. An entire tribe of people decimated by the toxins _we_ dumped into their water could be cured. Every family with a loved one wasting away from cancer could have hope.”

Blaine did not respond to that, stroking Kurt’s thigh with a comforting hand where words would have been inadequate. He knew all too well why completing his mother’s serum was so important to him. Truthfully he was proud of him, prouder than he would ever be able to express because for Kurt it wasn’t purely personal. It wasn’t just about finishing his mothers work, it was about sparing anyone else the pain he had gone through. It was about the Awá-Guajá who had fallen prey to western industrialism, whose lives and stories were being swept under the rug and brushed aside as a ‘tragic accident’. 

“We could have gotten samples elsewhere yes, but that’s paperwork, processing and time for a few vials of what I have ready at hand,” Kurt explained, running his hands through the still slightly damp curls at the nape of Blaine’s neck. “Every day that passes by is a day less for one of them.”

He had to step lightly, Blaine knew that. He had to make sure that Kurt understood that it wasn’t him that he didn’t believe in and not that he wanted to halt his research in any way, far from it. It galled him that he couldn’t simply back Kurt in this incredibly meaningful endeavor without reserve, that Woodrue would dare to capitalize on Kurt’s passions and the hopes of so many for his own purposes and force Blaine to try and explain to the man in his arms why he felt he should stop and take caution when he was very right; every day that he deliberated was a day that someone else died needlessly.

“I understand and I’m not angry…” Blaine stroked his thigh again and decided to back track. Honesty, or as close as he could come to it was probably his best bet here. “Or rather, I’m not angry with you at least. You’re doing exactly what I’d expect from you. You give it everything you have, and you’re managing to do what your mother spent most of her life trying to. I’m proud of you, Kurt. I want you to succeed.”

“But?” Kurt sighed, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“But Jason Woodrue is not the man you think he is and he’s not after what you’re after.” He felt Kurt stiffen but the other man didn’t make a move to get up off his lap or do much of anything.  Blaine waited warily, wondering what Kurt would do now that he’d brought up the elephant in the room.

“And you think that because _why_ Blaine?” He asked with deceptive calm. “Tell me what you know that has you so convinced. What is it that you’ve heard that would make you think despite all evidence to the contrary, despite Jason having no criminal record or ever stepping a toe out of line, that he is up to something nefarious?”

“Chesterfield-”

“-is a liar and a criminal Blaine! He’d be in jail twenty times over if he weren’t so good at lies and manipulation. Trust me, my brother is a police officer I’ve heard all about it.” Kurt twisted in his lap so that they were nearly eye to eye again. “Baby, you act like it should be easy for me to take the whisper of a man like that seriously over someone who has been nothing but a friend to me.”

“Kurt I don’t expect it to be easy for you, but I need you to trust me anyway.”

“Well, Blaine, you make that really hard when you don’t trust _me_ with what you know.” At Blaine’s surprised look Kurt rolled his eyes. “You think I don’t know you, Anderson? You don’t let things go that easily. If you thought Jason was up to something you’d dig and dig until you figured out what it was. You know something.”

“And the fact that you know that about me doesn’t convince you that maybe you should listen to me when I tell you someone is dangerous?” It angered him alright? If Kurt believed that he knew something about Woodrue why on earth wouldn’t he get rid of him?

“Yes! Because I’m my own person with my own feelings and I can’t simply jump when you snap your fingers. Especially when what you think you know might be wrong, but I can’t even judge that for myself. You just want me to fall in line behind you because you say so-”

“I do not! Kurt when have I ever-”

“When you decided for the both of us that it we couldn’t be together but it was perfectly okay to do everything but! When you _explained_ to me that all of your little trophy girlfriends were nothing but props and you looked at me like I was everything you wanted and told me how glad you were to have a friend like me.” Kurt let out a gush of aggravated sound and pushed his damp hair out of his eyes. He was still sweating far more than he should.

“And I was glad to have you as a friend! I still am. I never want to lose you. I can admit that.” He touched Kurt’s temple and frowned at the heat he felt there. “Don’t ever think that I intentionally tried to string you along Kurt, please. I never asked you to give up so much. I won’t pretend like I didn’t want it, didn’t benefit from it, but I never asked you. If you’d have walked away I’d have let you go.”

“That is malarkey, Blaine. There are other ways to ask besides words and not a month ago I _did_ try to walk away and last night you about fucked me out of my mind so so much for letting me go.” Blaine felt heat flush into his cheeks and he glanced quickly over at Luis, only to find the butler had left sometime during their conversation and he hadn’t even noticed.

Kurt cupped him by the chin and drew his attention again, saying softer but no less firm, “You want me. You’ve kept me with you even when it wasn’t fair and we both know that. I never resisted because I want you too. I volunteered because I knew that if I could just have _this,_ that it would be so worth it. I’ve known you were mine almost from the moment I saw you. ”

So had he, Blaine thought as he closed his eyes and tried to get his tumbling emotions under control. He’d resisted, he’d buried the knowledge of it and fought its return so avidly because the weight of it was enough to crush him. If he broke this, fucked it up and mangled it like he did almost everything of importance in his life, he would finally succeed in breaking himself.

“I want to be,” he choked out, galled at the way he never could seem to keep control around Kurt. But it was imperative that Kurt understand. He had to know that if Blaine lost him the way he’d lost his parents, if some evil gobbled him up and Blaine did nothing but watch and scream, it would destroy him.

“And you are, Beautiful” Kurt’s fingers stroked where they held his chin, his blue eyes bright and enthralling in their intensity. “Why do you keep on resisting me?”

“Because you’re too much,” Blaine admitted, bald and honest, his gaze never wavering. “Too much everything and there are things I can’t protect you from; especially me.”

Kurt’s answering smile was sensuous and oddly tender.

“I don’t want protecting from you. I want _everything_ from you,” he murmured and as Blaine opened his mouth to protest Kurt captured his lips in a deep kiss, nipping his bottom lip and sucking it into his mouth before he pulled away with a hum of contentment.  “Don’t deny me, Beautiful. Not ever.”

Blaine wasn’t sure what he meant by that, he’d said something similar in bed not too long ago, and the vehement possessiveness behind the words and in his touch as he stroked Blaine’s skin was nothing less than a promise of something dark should he dare. He knew that with a hundred percent certainty.

It wasn’t that he didn’t hear the alarm bells ringing in his own mind, it wasn’t that he didn’t shiver and sense some _wrongness_ about the way Kurt was acting. It was that all of that seemed dulled; none of it had as much consequence as the right they made when they were together. He knew in the back of his mind that there was danger, there was death ahead, but like prey staring into the golden eyes of a lion he stood enraptured; death after all came in the form of such a terribly beautiful creature.

The spell in the room was shattered at the approaching sound of raised voices and a moment later Woodrue burst into the kitchen, Luis on his heels.  Kurt and Blaine leapt to their feet- Kurt swaying off balance and Blaine having to steady him- as Luis tried to apologize for the intrusion and Jason talked over him.

“I’m sorry to barge in but your man wouldn’t let me pass and damn it this is important!” Jason seethed, resisting the butler’s attempts to drag him back. “Dammit man let go!”

“Let him go Lu,” Blaine ordered and the older man immediately complied, though he didn’t look at all pleased by it. “You realize you’ve just come bursting into my home uninvited Woodrue?”

“I’m sorry I truly am,” Woodrue apologized desperately, his fear of Blaine practically permuting off of him.  But that wasn’t enough to hold him back. He licked his lips nervously and looked to Kurt, frantic excitement overtaking him. “Kurt! The blood you gave me! I need more of it, the results from using type O, it’s phenomenal.”

Kurt’s eyes widened in shock and his face split into a delighted grin.

“It made a difference?”

“A difference? Kurt, it revolutionized everything we’ve done!” Woodrue crowed.

“Yes! Jason this is perfect,” Kurt clapped his hands eagerly jumping a little where he stood. The sudden movement seemed a bit much for him because he stumbled and would have fallen if Blaine hadn’t caught and steadied him again. His skin was still flushed with heat and clammy with sweat beneath Blaine’s hand.

“Let me get my things and we can head to the lab-”

“Absolutely not!” The command was out before Blaine could think it through, but with Kurt fevered and barely able to stand he meant it with everything inside him.

“Blaine we’ve been waiting for a breakthrough like this for months!”

“And it can wait until you’re well.”

“You aren’t well Kurt?” Woodrue interjected and Kurt tossed him an annoyed look.

“It’s nothing, a flu bug at worst.” Kurt waved away his concern. “If either of you think I’m letting a little virus keep me bed ridden when we’re this close to a revolutionary breakthrough in modern medicine you’re nuts!”

“No no no this is perfect.” To Blaine’s astonishment Woodrue’s concern evaporated into frantic delight. “If you’re ill it’s the perfect time to test the serum, we’ll be able to watch firsthand how the serum reacts to foreign-”

“Are you both out of your minds?!” He cut in, tempted to punch Woodrue until he saw stars. Would this man stop at nothing to get whatever it was he wanted? “Kurt I’m holding you up! Little virus my ass. You can’t do a thing for modern medicine if you kill yourself in that damn lab, and you are _not_ giving this fool,” he glared daggers into Woodrue who boldly enough glared back, “any more of your blood.”

“Stop giving me orders!” Kurt jerked out of his grasp and fell against the table. He pushed Blaine away when he tried to help right him, glaring at him with eyes full of fire. “Just stop with this Blaine, I can’t deal with this now. It’s too important!”

“You think I’m a fool?” Jason seethed and Blaine tore his attention away from Kurt to find the man standing closer, a new and off putting glint of triumph in his eyes. “I’m not the one he can’t trust! I’m not the one who has done everything he could to undermine his research. I’m not the one who organized my own public humiliation so that our team would be dependent on you for funding. I’m not the one who threatened me if I didn’t report all lab activity and deliberately hinder my own progress. I’m not the one stalling paper work and funds as he sees fit and causing disruption and delays because we can’t get equipment and supplies as we need them.”

The room went still and silent but for the sound of Kurt’s ragged breathing. Jason’s cold green eyes bore into Blaine’s, the air between them charged. For the first time Woodrue let him see the hunter behind his gaze, the gloating of a bloated spider as it eyed the flies in its web.  He was forced to turn his gaze when Kurt sucked in a sharp breath and shattered the stillness in the room.

“What?” He asked, clearly not wanting to believe and Woodrue winced as if he didn’t enjoy what he was doing, the bastard.

“I’m sorry, Kurt, but he threatened not to fund us if I didn’t meet his demands.” Woodrue turned to him with earnest and pleading eyes. “I don’t know what you think I did wrong, Anderson, but please, please, don’t do any more to stop us. We’re so close and there’s more at stake than whatever misdeed you think I’ve done. An entire people group who doesn’t deserve to die! Dammit man, stop this! Kurt has-”

It was as if a switch went off in Blaine’s head. One minute he was stood listening to Jason spew his lies and the next he had his enemy pinned to the ground, his only aim to silence him whatever way he had to.

“Don’t you say his name!” He heard himself snarl as he laid into his adversary, uncharacteristically furious and only growing angrier as Woodrue refused to fight back. “Don’t you touch him! Damn you! I won’t let you I won’t let you I won’t let you!”

He’d kill him. Blaine had killed before and always there was remorse but that couldn’t matter. Nothing would stop him this time. He heard Luis shouting his name, he felt his arms trying to pull him off the cowering scientist, but none of it broke through the fog of rage in his mind. None of it could matter as much as destroying the dark thing with teeth that had ahold of Kurt and would gobble him up just as it had gobbled up everything else that he loved.

Arms wrenched him away from his prey and a raw scream of fury tore out of his throat as success was denied him and once again he was forced to stare into the gloating face of evil as he was dragged away.

“NO!” He turned toward Luis, raging furiously, only for something heavy to crash against his cheek and blind him with white hot pain. He heard the sound of something shattering over the ringing in his ears, but it was a moment before his swimming vision cleared enough for him to be able to look and see that it was not Luis who had a hold of him but Kurt.

Kurt had just punched him.

Vaguely Blaine’s addled brain took stock of Luis kneeling next to Woodrue, the odd sight of plants laying amidst shattered pottery where they lay toppled beneath the window sill, but he stood frozen- terrified of himself and of Kurt who stood in front of him pale as a ghost, slick with sweat, hair on end and filled to the brim with dark ferocity.

If all of that weren’t enough to paralyze Blaine with fear, the betrayal burning in his eyes alone would have been enough. What had he done? He was shaking he realized as tears began to well in his eyes. He had made a mistake of that he was sure. A terrible awful mistake and he was going to lose…

“Kurt,” he pleaded and to his horror Kurt, despite his apparent weakness, hissed and shoved him aside without so much as looking at him again. He knelt beside Woodrue and examined his bloody face for a long moment before turning to Luis, his gaze quiet for all of its frigidness.

“Luis would you get a towel and some ice for Jason please?” When the butler complied without complaint Kurt helped Woodrue to his feet and guided him gently toward the door.

“Kurt please.” Blaine needed him to wait, couldn’t stand the earthquake rumbling in his guts, the icy hand squeezing his heart as Kurt walked away from him, walked right into danger. “Kurt stop!”

 “Blaine.” Kurt’s quiet command might as well have been a shout, Blaine’s words died on his tongue. He whispered something to Woodrue and the man nodded, limping from the kitchen. Kurt watched him and then turned back to Blaine, his gaze still cool and empty.

“I didn’t think I needed protecting from you, but I’ve been pretty stupid when it comes to you. I can see that now.”

“You’re right,” though his words hurt Blaine couldn’t let anything matter but making Kurt see. Damn his heart, damn the taste of his passion and the joy he’d briefly savored in his arms. Damn it all if it meant Kurt’s life. “I fucked up, but you have to listen to me. He’s creating something in that lab that he’s trying to sell to Chesterfield and every mob boss in the city who is willing to pay him for it.”

Kurt cocked his head at this revelation and asked simply, “Your proof?”

“If I had that he’d be gone already.”

“Yes, he would wouldn’t he.” Kurt agreed with a humorless smile. “Because when you declare someone guilty they pay. No matter what you have to do and who you have to hurt in the process, even me. Isn’t that right, Beautiful?” He advanced on Blaine slowly, graceful and deadly as a tiger as he stalked towards him.

“I didn’t trust you,” Blaine said whatever he could, everything he’d not been willing to before in order to halt their hurtle towards ruin. “I did everything you asked me not to do. I went behind your back and I know you can’t forgive me. “

“I won’t,” Kurt agreed in the same simple way circling behind Blaine. He followed Kurt’s movements not only to search his eyes but because every instinct he had knew better than to turn his back on a predator.

“Alright, I understand,” he said even though he felt like screaming again. “I won’t blame you if you hate me forever. I know we’re done, but just this one last time Kurt trust me and _don’t_ trust him!

Behind him again Kurt chuckled and Blaine turned to face him, finding Kurt much closer than he expected, so close that his breath wafted across his skin.

“Oh Blaine,” he sighed. “You don’t listen very well, do you Beautiful?”

“What are you going to do?” He didn’t know what to make of Kurt’s strange mood, the danger he felt wafting off of him with the confusing contrast of his tender touch.

“Whatever I dare to… for a change,” Kurt smiled sharply at him, pressing a soft kiss at the base of his throat. Blaine gasped as he felt the sting of his teeth as Kurt nipped the same portion of skin he’d marked that morning; its tenderness spread a sweet ache through Blaine’s limbs and lit something hot and heavy in his belly. Once again Kurt soothed the vivid bruise with tiny strokes of his tongue, and then he stood back from Blaine and examined his work as if inspecting a brand.

Satisfied he nodded and turned towards the door as if there was nothing more to be settled between them.

“He’s dangerous Kurt!” Blaine tried one last time, fighting the haze of desire Kurt always seemed able to stir in him.

Kurt paused at the door- bracing a hand against the frame possibly to keep himself upright- as he visibly shuddered and slumped as if hit by a sudden wave of exhaustion. Then he straightened, strengthened by the force of will alone.

“Let him be,” he said without so much as a look over his shoulder. “He’ll find I’m quite dangerous myself.”


	10. Chapter 10

Kurt had never felt so terrible in his life. It wasn’t just the steadily worsening pain in his body that had him slumping against the passenger side door of Jason’s car. No, the reason for the tears slipping down his cheeks had more to do with the man he was leaving behind him and the shattered fantasy he’d allowed himself to believe could be real.

For twenty-four perfect hours he’d believed that they could have it all, that Blaine really could _love_ him like he needed. It didn’t matter to him that Blaine was convinced Jason was bad. He thought bitterly to himself that at this point Jason could turn in the driver’s seat with glinting knife in hand with rousing cackle and it wouldn’t change the fact that rather than trust him in _any_ sense of the word, instead Blaine had gone behind his back.

He’d hindered their progress and had the sheer audacity to comfort Kurt after every set back, all the while knowing it was _him_ in the way. All because he thought he had the right! He stupidly thought Kurt would care more about being protected than being respected. He stupidly thought that because they fucked maybe it would slip past his notice that once again Blaine Anderson stomped all over a promise like it meant not a god damn thing to him!

_You promised to always tell me the truth. So much for that._

Kurt groaned, another wave of nausea rolling through him. He grit his teeth and desperately tried to stifle the urge to throw up. He felt sweat trickle down his brow but regrettably it was doing nothing to cool his flushed skin.

Truthfully been so determined to get to the lab, to show Blaine that he would finish what he started with or without his help, that he’d spread a few lies of his own. It didn’t feel like he had a passing flu bug at all. It felt like he was being bitten from the inside out by fire ants and he didn’t think he could stand again even if he tried.

“Ja-Jason,” he gasped out as an intense stab of pain shot through his stomach. Fuck that hurt. Everything hurt. Everything was a mess and he _hated_ it. Hated how nothing ever worked out for good no matter how much he gave or how much he tried.

“Just relax, Kurt. We’re nearly there,” Jason said and Kurt groaned again, weakly shaking his head. It turned into more of a writhe as another wave or pain washed over him.

He needed…. He needed a hosp…. god that hurt _so_ much. Blaine. He suddenly really wanted Blaine. He hated that even more.

“It hurts,” he forced the words out. “GOD! Why does it h-hurt so much?”

“It hurts, darling, because right now you’ve some very special genes that are not quite in accord with the rest of your genetic makeup.” Jason was speaking but the words didn’t make sense to Kurt at all.  What was he talking about? “Think of your body as a machine with new and out dated parts. The newer parts are too big for your old bolts and screws. You’re essentially rattling loose.”

“Wha-” he cut himself off with a sharp gasp and Jason made a shushing sound and patted the back of his sweat soaked head.

“Shhh, darling, don’t exhaust yourself. We’ll be there soon and I’ll give you something to make you feel better. I’ll take care of you I promise.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

Blaine had instincts and they had been telling him from the beginning that Jason Woodrue was dangerous. They were screaming at him now, bludgeoning him with the certainty that something very bad was about to happen and he had absolutely no idea what to do about it.

It should have been simple. Remove the threat, stop Jason before whatever he was planning could involve Kurt any further, but it wasn’t. Because he’d already screwed up so badly and he’d lose so much more if he interfered any further. Not only had he betrayed Kurt he’d broken his promise and lied- a lie of omission was still a lie, he had to accept that now- and it was _him_ that Kurt didn’t trust.

“Damn it!” Blaine slammed his fist against the nearest wall, welcoming the bright burst of pain in his knuckles. “Fuck!”

“A lot of good that is going to do,” Luis scolded from the kitchen doorway. “It’s Woodrue you want to punch and not that I blame you but you might have waited to-”

“I know!” He snapped. “Fuck, you think I don’t know I screwed up?” He’d pulled the god damn trigger. He’d swung the hammer that was going to shatter everything!

“Blaine!” Someone was shaking him. It was then that he realized he’d been punching the wall, that his hands were bloodied and numb. “Pull yourself together, son! Look at me!” The reedy old man jerked him by his chin until they were eye to eye in a surprising show of strength. “What’s done is done. Kurt just left here with a man you believe to be dangerous and you can feel it. I know you can. You’ve a job to do, Blaine. No more time for regrets.”

There was a storm inside Blaine, a hurricane of violent emotions that assaulted his weakening control, but Luis was right; there was also a certainty inside of him that with every moment of focus given it muted everything else. Kurt needed him right now and he’d do whatever had to be done to protect him. Everything else could hang.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*

The car slowed to a stop. Kurt rolled his head against the window, straining to see through the haze of tears clouding his vision. They were across the street and down some from Ecron Laboratories. There weren’t many people walking about but there was plenty of early morning traffic as those whose mornings had gotten off to a slow start rushed to get to work.

As he panted against the passenger side window Kurt was aware that something was very wrong. It wasn’t just the strange things Jason had said, the terrifying pain in a body that felt as if it were rapidly deteriorating even as he sat, or even that he visibly needed medical attention and his partner was doing nothing to see that he got it.

Jason had been insistent on taking him to the lab, and yet he’d parked away from it. That oddly enough struck Kurt as wrongest of all in the midst of a situation so off balance he had no sense of what was up anymore.

He looked over at Jason to find him looking back, watching him with an intense eagerness that was so out of place in the stillness of the car it could only mean that he expected something to happen. What that was Kurt had no way to even fathom but with his body turning inside out and Blaine’s warnings fresh in his mind the knowledge was settling painfully that he had made a mistake.

He suddenly didn’t trust that anything that happened while they waited here could be good. And wasn’t that ironic considering he’d trusted this man inside his head, inside his heart, and naively given him the keys to the most important work of his adult life.

Now they were parked outside it waiting for some unknown and he just knew with quiet certainty that he was about to lose it all.

Again.

Because _always_.

Even though he felt the end, he tried to believe it wasn’t happening. He grappled weakly for the door handle but his shaking hands were so clammy with sweat that he couldn’t seem to get a firm grip on it. In the driver’s seat Jason shifted and Kurt fought to turn and face him. When he could finally look at him he found the man leaning over him, open briefcase in lap and a syringe in hand, a lopsided grin on his lips. His eyes weren’t on Kurt however; they were pinned on the lab, still bizarrely bright and eager.

“Why?” Kurt forced the question out past the pain, past the terror, and Jason finally looked at him. He cocked his head but did not answer immediately. Instead he lifted up the hem of Kurt’s shirt and exposed his back. The cool air against his bare skin felt like ice against Kurt’s fevered skin. Jason’s fingers stroking his trembling flesh strangely more violating than anything he’d ever experienced.

“For greatness,” the Welshman finally answered. Kurt jerked when he felt the sting of a needle. The foreign substance flooding his veins burned hot like fire. He’d have writhed against it if he had any energy to move. He could do nothing but lay limply, relieved when numbness began trickling through his limbs.

“The problem with people, Kurt, is that they’re so limited. Limited by death, by disease, by the smallness of their own minds. Your mother stumbled across something that if developed could turn a man into a god.

“Imagine, Kurt, if your body was freed from all limitations, if you never had to worry about illness or death again.” Jason’s eyes gleamed with hunger and they turned back to staring at the lab, even as his hands continued to stroke Kurt and push that cooling fire into his veins. “They said it was too dangerous, that it was inhuman to do the type of experiments it would require. She like everyone else seemed content to bandage a few aches and pains because they were too weak to do what was necessary for true greatness.”

So he’d done it, Kurt’s sluggish mind pieced together, with his help.

“Yes,” Jason seemed to read his mind. “I couldn’t have done it without your brilliance; it’s why I chose you as my test subject. I needed a human test subject you see, and with such unpredictable results I wasn’t about to use it on myself. You’re a scientist darling I’m sure you can understand.”

“W-why now? Why are you telling me all of this now?”

“I can’t complete the next stage without you noticing I’m afraid. I’m right of course in assuming that you’re not altogether keen to aide me in my work?” Kurt wasn’t quite able to answer yet, but Jason saw something in his eyes that made him chuckle. “I thought not, and as what I have done is quite illegal and there are a trail of troublesome illegalities behind me that could result in my imprisonment, your unfortunate death, and the tragic end to the greatest discovery our world has ever known, it’s time for some changes.”

With the pain in his body numbing more by the second Kurt struggled to sit up. Jason let him, discarding the empty syringe and disarmingly unbothered by Kurt’s returning mobility.

“F-fuck you,” he groused out, glaring at the other man. “-if you think I’m letting you put another damn thing in me.”

“I’m afraid if you want to live you have to, darling boy.” Jason patted his thigh. “You see I’m rather clever and I did not give you quite all that you need to complete your assent into greatness. It’s too late for you to go back, there’s only going forward for you or else your body will tear itself a part. You’ve felt that already haven’t you?”

It was then that Kurt realized he was up against someone without conscience or remorse. There was no time to think about betrayal or even the frightening prospect of his body changing without any clue just how and if it might not all kill him in the end.

Jason sucked in an excited breath and Kurt swore he could all but smell his arousal permuting the air around them, thick and heavy.

“Do you want to kill me?” He sounded perversely hopeful and Kurt cringed inside, not because the thought was so ugly but because he did not have to search deep at all to find that he very much did.

“No!” He insisted, more for himself than anyone else. “I’ll never let you get away with this Jason. I’ll go to the authorities the first chance I get! Wherever you take me you’re going to get caught. You heard Blaine this morning,” Kurt latched onto the thin hope that memory provided. “He’ll kill you Jason. You don’t know Blaine like I do. He’ll find you and he’ll kill you.”

“Oh I know Anderson’s a killer, men with money and power usually are.” Jason smirked, seemingly unconcerned with the threat of what Blaine might do to him. “But ordinary men like you and I, we get told to be good. You know who pushes all of these ideas about goodness, Kurt? Men like Anderson. They make speeches and give out medals to honor us, and like children we buy into it, content with our empty play things while bigger men do whatever they need to for their own aims. It’s how the people in power stay in power.”

“So what?” Kurt asked as Jason fished through the brief case on his lap. “Your crazy experiment with my DNA busts and I die? Or it succeeds and then what? You have to kill me either way Woodrue because if you get what you want and I survive I’m not letting you get away with it.  Do you really want to add murder to your rap sheet?”

“It hasn’t phased me before.” Kurt sucked in a sharp breath.

“Who.. who did….”

“Think hard, darling, I think you know.”

Pierre. The certainty of it settled heavy in his gut and he let out a choked sob. Jason had murdered to get his position and he wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. He’d never tasted fear like this before.

“My brother is a police officer…” he tried again to strike some sort of fear in the man. “Blaine already has you figured out and he’s got enough money to buy off ten juries. You won’t be free long enough to enjoy any of the profit from this.”

“Ah but then again you’re missing the point,” Jason said as he withdrew a tiny black remote control from the briefcase. “In all of your threats I heard about what others would do for you. Your brother, your lover… and it’s all very fascinating, but my focus darling has always been you.”

“Damn it why!” Kurt thundered. His heart had accelerated at the sight of the device in Jason’s hand and he was incensed over the continued paralysis of his limbs and his utter vulnerability.

“Because you’ve greatness in you. You just need the right push.” Jason extended a long thin antenna on the remote control and looked back towards the lab. “You see you’re wrong. When the lab explodes killing everyone inside no one will be looking for you at all. It will be the end of Kurt Hummel as the world has known him and the beginning of something new. It  also means the end of everything you’ve worked for, which is unfortunate for that little tribe of Awá-Guajá.”

Kurt’s stomach plummeted and he turned wild eyes towards the lab. Blow it up? He honestly didn’t know what appalled him the most. The thought of people dying right here and now in his present or the hundred or so people it would kill by slow degrees because the hope he’d promised them with the serum was snatched away in an instant.

“No!” He strained so hard to lift his arms that he felt his whole body sweat with the effort and still nothing. “You can’t! There are people… Alec and Linda!”

“Necessary sacrifices. No one conquers without blood Hummel; greatness has its price. ”

“Jason please! Don’t do this. I’ll do whatever you want!”

“I want to know if you feel like killing me now.”

“What?” Kurt sputtered. His mind was spinning, the danger too close and too real. If he said the wrong thing it could mean innocent lives. He licked his dry lips and panted a plea, “I’ll go with you. I’ll do what you want. I’ll do it. Just please…”

“Alright.” Everything in the car stilled as Kurt’s eyes snapped to Jason’s with shock. The Welshman smiled softly at him. “You promise to do what I want?”

“Y-yes,” Kurt gulped past his hot tears. “Anything.”

“Kiss me.”

His stomach heaved but he didn’t think about the bile in his throat as Jason leaned over him. He thought about Alec and Linda and all the other men and women starting their work day unaware that the clock was ticking, that with the push of a button it could all be over. He surged against Jason’s lips, used teeth and tongue like they were his only weapons. He poured every bit of fury he had into that kiss and when Jason moaned into his mouth he only just managed to control the desire to bite down until he drew blood.

Jason drew back licking his bruised lips a knowing glint in his eyes.

“There it is.” Jason grinned as if delighted. “If kisses could kill eh darling?”

A slight movement was the only warning and then the sound of an explosion seemed to rend the very air in two.

Soul screaming: soul screaming agony. It had always been an interesting phrase, but nothing with any real meaning to Kurt, nothing he could say he understood. In one bright booming instant that all changed. 

Everything inside of Kurt seemed to scream and then to silence all at once. He stared sightlessly at the ball of flame where the lab had once stood and knew with absolute certainty that he’d died in that building as sure as if Jason had tied him up and left him there to burn.

“You are an exquisite creature, Kurt Hummel.” Jason murmured wiping the hot tear trickling down Kurt’s cheek. “Now become limitless.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

60

     65

           75

                 85

The speedometer steadily climbed as Blaine’s foot pressed heavier and heavier on the gas. His heart was racing and his knuckles were white on the steering wheel as he careened through morning traffic at speeds that would have surely caused an accident for anyone who hadn’t spent time learning to drive at incredible speeds with numerous moving obstacles.

Five minutes ago his only aim had been getting to the lab and dragging Kurt away from Woodrue and into a hospital bed, until his police scanner had screamed to life in a flurry of activity and voices. It all came at once and so fast, and he was so focused on Kurt that he almost missed it.

_Explosion at Ecron Laboratories. All units available please report….._

_…Fire spreading to other buildings. Clear the area of civilians…_

_Dispatch this is Officer Hudson…._

Now there was just terror and single minded determination.

90

    95

_~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~_

The thing about disasters was that there was no way you could ever really prepare for them. Sure, disasters and violence were a part of Finn Hudson’s day to day. You couldn’t be a police officer in Lima City without getting a taste of calamity every now and again, but never did chaos become normal.

Chaos was always ferocious, it always bit hard and it always left marks. Chaos was the smoke and the flames billowing form the quickly crumbling building on the corner of High street, chaos was the sound of screaming of sirens and fire engines, the weeping of men and women as they lost and feared loss; chaos was his insides as he looked into face after face and did not see his brothers.

“My husband! Sir have you seen my husband?!” A hysterical woman in a clean white lab coat grabbed him and wailed. “I-I left for a second just for a second!”

“Miss you need to clear the area,” Finn worked on autopilot, pushing her back even as she beat at his shoulders and screamed for someone named Alec.

Alec. Alec Holland. The name clicked in his mind from Sunday brunch with his mom and Burt, meeting Kurt and his teammates and listening to them talk about things that went way over his head but made him happy to see Kurt so enthusiastic.

“Linda!” He grabbed her and maybe shook her a little too hard. “Kurt, have you seen Kurt?!”

“H-he didn’t show up this morning.” Linda blinked rapidly as she struggled to collect herself. “We expected he was going to call in because he was with Blaine last night.” An immense wave of relief washed through Finn even as the woman’s eyes filled with tears again. She was looking back at the building being devoured by flames behind them. “Jason didn’t either which is why I made the run to pick up our supplies from the university. Jason usually does…. And then I c-came back and… oh god… oh god….”

Even as Linda fell apart in his arms Finn’s brain could only chant over and over again _Kurt is with Blaine. Kurt is with Blaine. It’s okay._

 “Hudson!” His partner Puck’s voice broke through the fog in his mind. “Get her back! LCPD needs to get through and commissioner says we’re quarantining the place. They say there’s probably a chemical leak.”

Finn nodded and began guiding a sobbing Linda backwards even as Puck and several other officers rushed to put up barricades.

“FINN!” He heard yet another familiar voice shouting and he left Linda in office Clark’s capable hands for questioning even as his mother and step father rushed towards him. His mother’s face was ashen but it was Burt he watched carefully. The man had a bad heart and he and Kurt were close in a way he’d always envied.

“Finn what the hell’s going on!” Burt demanded searching franticly among the crowd for his son much as Finn had been doing only moments before. “He’s not answering his cell! Is Kurt-”

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” he immediately set to soothe even as Burt grabbed his arm to demand information. “Kurt didn’t come in to work this morning. One of his partners said he spent the night with Blaine.”

“Oh thank god,” his mom’s whole body sagged and Burt pulled her into a tight hug looking as if he needed the comfort about as much as she did. “You guys stay here. I have to help with-” but Finn never finished.

Just then a familiar black Jaguar came roaring around the corner. The sound of squealing tires was nothing amidst the din surrounding them but it sent a shiver down his spine just the same. He knew that car, not many people could afford cars like that, and it wasn’t odd that Kurt would come here once he heard the news but something about the sound set his teeth on edge, made him feel as if something bad were about to happen.

Several of the guys were already rushing towards the car by the time it managed to stop and they met the man who leaped out of the driver’s seat with shouts that Finn couldn’t make out over the noise.

“Is that Blaine?” Carole asked. His heart pounding Finn’s feet carried him toward his brother’s best friend without really receiving any order from him. He barely noticed his parents following quickly behind him.

“Mr. Anderson we will cuff you and charge you with disruption of-” Kenny was trying to push Blaine back as they approached and Blaine all but snarled and pushed him back.

“Fuck your charges! Let me through!”

Hearing Blaine’s livid words made everything inside Finn lurch but he held onto hope. It didn’t have to mean what he thought it did. It could mean any number of….

“Blaine!” Burt rushed past Finn, getting between Blaine and Officer Kenny. “Blaine, where’s Kurt, isn’t he with you.”

Blaine’s eyes flew from Burt to Carole and Finn waiting with baited breath and finally settled on the burning building behind them.

“Oh… oh… oh…” he could hear his mother gasping for air behind him.

“Finn?” Blaine looked to him, so much pleading in his eyes and Finn felt the world drop from beneath his feet.

“It’s too hot,” he said as if in a stupor. “The fireman can’t even get inside… Anyone in the building….”

“Oh my god,” Finn had never heard Burt Hummel cry before but this wasn’t quite crying. This was a gross sort of groaning, a horrible throbbing release of bloated agony that had nowhere to go but out. “Somebody help me find my son. Somebody has to get in there. Kurt. KURT! God Damn it somebody help! Somebody…”

Burt’s cries all seemed to melt together as Finn’s world narrowed to a tunnel of thought.

_Can’t deal can’t deal can’t deal can’t deal with this._

“Finn!” Blaine’s shout snapped him out of his shock. “What about Woodrue? Was Woodrue in the building?”

What did that matter? Blaine hadn’t even liked Woodrue. Kurt had told him so. Kurt who was dead. Oh god he was going to be sick.

“DAMN IT FINN TELL ME!”

“Yes!” Finn jumped back, finding Blaine suddenly in his face. “I mean no. No, Linda said he didn’t make it in to work this morning and she had to make a run for- where are you going?!”

But Blaine had turned and bolted for his car and didn’t look back. Finn made a split second decision to follow. He’d never really understand why.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Blaine slammed the door shut and tore down the street in reverse almost before he could get the door shut behind him.

“Tracking,” he commanded the cars computer system and it whirred to life with the calming efficiency of automated things. “Woodrue. ID686”

Blaine was never one to leave anything to chance. He’d put a tracking device on Woodrue’s car ages ago when he’d first started tailing the man. He hadn’t bothered to use it before now because fool that he was he’d not expected Woodrue to do anything to Kurt, or at least not so soon after his violent display of suspicion that morning. He’d assumed that he’d want to lay low and keep nurturing Kurt’s mistrust of _him_. He’d judge the man all wrong it seemed. He didn’t think the accident at the lab was any accident at all and if Kurt was alive at all he’d be with Woodrue.

 _Processing…_ the computer informed him and he pulled the car out of reverse and drove without any real direction but didn’t bother slowing. Damn. Damn. Damn. What if Woodrue had found the tracking device?

Kurt was… Kurt had been… no. NO! Stop thinking that. Focus. Focus damn you!

_Processing…_

What if he’d just driven another car to his house that morning? This morning they’d been lying together in his bed. Kurt had looked like something fallen from heaven. He’d been everything Blaine had waited and longed for since childhood… he’d been such a god damn fool! Oh Kurt… did he even know? Did he know that thinking about him being gone stopped his time, stopped the steady rhythm of his heart and made living seem like something of a joke? How does one live without the best part of themselves? How does someone recover from the loss of the mirroring mind and answering heart?  What if Kurt wasn’t with Woodrue and had been in the damn building? What if he was even now burning up and Blaine was speeding away from him?

What if this was what going mad felt like?

_Target located._

Blaine turned a hard right and forced his mind to focus. He couldn’t think on what he might find when he caught up to Woodrue and he couldn’t dwell on what he might not.

Either way he had to do what he should have done from the beginning and stop Jason before he could hurt anyone else. That’s what he told himself. That’s what any morally just person would think.

But the truth? The dark ugly truth of it was he wanted his blood and he wanted it bad.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Jason drove them back to his home, letting the silence in the car rein but for the choked sound of Kurt’s tears and raged breaths. Kurt moved from the chill of shock to the heat of fury in slow degrees, feel malice flush through his blood like a blush with each ticking second.

Jason had destroyed everything! So many deaths, pointless deaths, so many more people might die if he couldn’t start all over again! How dare he? How fucking dare this man- this monster- come into his life and violate everything close to him!

He was dying, being torn apart inside out, because this lunatic had some delusion of what it meant to be great and thought he could create himself into some sort of super being.

He was dying because he’d trusted a charming stranger when Blaine, his beautiful Blaine, had warned him not to and now he’d never see him again. To know only once what it was like to melt in his embrace, to break through his walls and reduce Blaine’s control to nothing… that was so unjust, so damn cruel of fate that he wept with it.

He was all rage inside, yet his visage remained cold and unblinking as his cries quieted and his body grew cooler and stiller. There was no more pain and the paralyzing numbness was almost completely gone. He had no idea if he’d be able to move when the time came but he knew somehow that what he needed would be available to him, that nothing at all would stand in his way from exacting his revenge on the man who had taken everything.

In that way he truly had become limitless. There were no questions in his mind of _should he_. He’d earned the right in blood, the blood of innocents whose deaths he’d see avenged and never to be repeated or dance with Jason in hell.

Jason climbed out of the car, whistling to himself as he went and walked around to Kurt’s side of the car. When he opened the door he was met with Kurt’s seemingly dull stare and he clucked his tongue.

“You’ll thank me for this someday, darling. Let me help you out so we can get you in the basement.”

Kurt wordlessly complied, finding his limbs to be sluggish and uncoordinated but not anywhere near as paralyzed as they’d been after the initial injection of whatever experimental serum Jason had pumped him with.  His muscles burned with each movement but he welcomed the pain. He knew with confidence that when the time came he’d have all the strength he needed to do what had to be done.

He knew because stepping outside he discovered something unexpected. The grass on the ground, the weeds jutting between the blades, the trees lining the street…. All of them were living organisms with energy. Always he had felt an affinity to them, but never quite this keenly. He somehow knew, as if it were innate, that should he desire he could tap into their energies, he could manipulate them like a master puppeteer or draw from them much like a leach would draw blood.

In truth the grass seemed to stretch toward him as if bent by a breeze, the branches of the trees seemed to reach. They felt his energy too and they were not unaffected by the storm inside him, nor the noxious aura that seemed to permute off of Jason in waves. His sharp gaze caught the imperceptible way the plant life held away from him as he all but carried Kurt up the walk.

 _He is poison. You are walking dead._ It wasn’t so much that he heard a voice, but that he felt a collection of them. He felt and he understood as clear as if he’d heard spoken words.

_I will kill him before I die. Help me?_

_We only have so much strength._

_I have strength. I can make you limitless._


	11. Chapter 11

Finn recognized this part of Lima. Cherry Street was on the outskirts of the city, a good twenty minute drive in good traffic from the downtown metropolis. It was truly the beginning of a suburb all its own, wooded, quiet and mostly populated by yuppies who wanted the closeness of the city without the constant noise and high crime.

Lima unincorporated. What was Blaine doing here? Blaine’s Jag had come to a sliding stop outside a one story house: a house that looked as if a tornado had swept through and dropped an uprooted tree on it. The other houses around it were immaculate, still and quiet with their inhabitants off to school or work. If there was anyone around they were holing up inside, hiding from whatever force had swept through and dropped an entire tree on the roof wizard of oz style.

_“Officer Hudson. This is dispatch. Please respond. Over.”_

Finn grappled for his radio, unable to tear his eyes off the house with its roof half caved in and ivy poking through cracks and cracking paint. 

“Yeah… This is Officer Hudson I’m-Jesus!” Finn shrieked as something loud rapped on the window and he jumped about a foot. His heart only slowed marginally when he saw that it was Blaine.

_“ Officer Hudson please confirm your location. Over.”_

“Uh….” Blaine was gesturing for him to lower the window so Finn did that, buying time to figure out just what to tell the guys he was doing. Sorry I left you hanging with that huge explosion and everything. My dead brothers boyfriend took off and I thought I’d see what he was up to?

“Blaine,” he started instead. “What’s going on? What happened to this house?”

“It’s Woodrue’s house and you shouldn’t be here Finn. Go home!”

“Kurt’s Woodrue?” Finn asked and he didn’t miss the way Blaine’s jaw clenched.

“He’s no friend of Kurt’s” Blaine practically spat. “Now go home, there’s nothing you can do here.”

 _“Officer Hudson…”_ Aggravated Finn switched off the radio and glared at the shorter man leaning in his window.

“Not a chance Anderson. You think I’m stupid? Kurt’s lab blows up out of nowhere and the guy in charge of making sure accidents like this don’t happen just conveniently doesn’t show up to work that day? Instead of waiting to see about Kurt…” Finn had to swallow past the sudden lump in his throat before he could go on. “You came over here looking for blood because you think Woodrue did something.”

“I don’t think Finn I know. I also know he’s a very dangerous man. I can handle him but I can’t do that and look after you too.”

“I’m the police. It’s what I’m trained for. You’re a citizen Blaine you-”

 _“Officer Hudson please respond immediately. Do you need assistance?”_ Shit hadn’t he turned that off? He fumbled with a different switch, trying to get his hands to stop shaking.

“I can’t argue about this with you.” Blaine backed away from the window, his concentration already turning from Finn and to the house at the end of the drive. “Whatever you do stay out of my way.”

“Hey wait!” But Blaine was already striding towards the house. Finn fumbled with his door and managed to get halfway out it when his radio let out a jarring beep, reminding him he’d yet to answer it.

“ _Officer Hudson-”_

 _“_ Officer Hudson here, I’m at 206 Cherry street…” He finally answered. “Ah I got a lead on the accident at Ecron, no assistance needed.”

_“Commissioner says he needs all units at Ecron Hudson, containing the damage is our primary focus until further notice. Understood?”_

Finn looked back at the house just in time to watch Blaine walk through the door. He left it open behind him so Finn doubted anyone in the household had opened it for him. The neighboring houses were still quiet, but he thought he saw something flicker in an upstairs window of the house on the right.

He didn’t bother answering this time.

~*~*~*~*~~*~

Jason had brought him to the basement.  The room was brightly lit and set up like a make shift laboratory. There was a bed with restraints that Jason laid him on. The restraints were made of metal and they were cold against his heated skin.

Kurt phased in and out of awareness, taking the odd note on his surroundings when he was lucid enough to do so. It wasn’t that he was fighting losing consciousness any longer. He couldn’t explain it to himself even, but he knew that his enhanced connection to nature wasn’t just a spiritual thing. It was physical; it was a weapon that he planned on using.

His mind was floating somewhere on a new plane. His skin tingled with the feel of unseen energy brushing against it, opening him up and digging inside to collide with electrons and set off fire in his blood and bones. The whole earth seemed to shake with it, and he knew it wasn’t in his own mind because Jason had been unreasonably pleased to inform him that a tree had crashed through the roof and that if he kept it up the house might fall in around them.

“I did not predict this sort of strength, not yet,” he’d crowed but Kurt was paying him little attention. He concentrated instead on the riot inside his own body. He really could feel something like electricity sparking through his cells.

There was eroticism to the feeling, he arched his spine and his fingers flexed to the feeling of it, eyes opened wide on a gasp as pleasure slid effortless back and forth between it and agony.

There were bars on the window… the window was covered in ivy…. His mind collected details as everything around him went brilliant and sharp.

 “Simply exquisite. I do hope you survive this…” Jason’s voice drifted to him as another spike of pain washed through him and everything became distant and muddled.

_Are you ready?_

There was ivy at the window…. Kurt shivered as the pain slid back into pleasure. This time the white hot burn of it lasted longer.

_Nearly._

He heard someone shout but in his muddled mind he couldn’t be sure if it was him or Jason. But no, Jason was reaching for something in a drawer… a gun, and he was looking towards the ceiling with  a tense scowl on his face.

“Woodrue!” The shout came again and this time Kurt recognized the voice of its owner.

“Blaine!” Jason’s hand slammed down over his mouth, so hard Kurt bit his tongue and his eyes watered. The Welshman pressed the nozzle of the gun to his lips and made a shushing sound.

“If you care about him at all you’ll let me send him on his way.”

Kurt could only watch as Jason tucked the gun inside his jacket and climbed up the stairs. He struggled fruitlessly against the restraints on his arms and legs, gasping Blaine’s name in a breathless warning. Blaine wasn’t here to talk to Woodrue. He was here to hurt him and Jason had a gun. He could see the brightness of Blaine’s blood as clearly as if it had already begun to run and it made that black angry thing inside him unfurl like a poisonous blossom.

_Ready?_

He heard shouting upstairs, several thumps, and the crack of a gun going off and he snarled. His fists clenched as the instinct to leap off the bed and get to Blaine screamed through him. And then pain tore through his head, twisted in his guts, one last ferocious time and he screamed.

_Yes._

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Getting the front door open was simple. He kicked it in, barely sparing a thought for the damage done to the house already and whether or not that might be a good idea. He didn’t know what he was thinking but his mind was quickly taking stock and gathering information and none of it was making sense.

Woodrue had never displayed any before but he must have some sort of paranormal ability because Blaine could practically feel the supernatural breathing against his skin. The grass outside had brushed against his ankles without benefit of a wind to move it, the tree that had fallen through the roof had branches jutting everywhere almost as if they were reaching for something.  There was ivy everywhere: creeping up the walls, twining around the branches of the tree, stretching across the floor like a slowly moving wave.

He could taste danger in the air, feel a slow pulse of energy pressing against him as if danger itself had a heartbeat. Woodrue might be far more dangerous than he’d ever anticipated.

_Let him be. He’ll find I’m quite dangerous myself._

Kurt’s words came back to him and thinking of Kurt made everything inside him clench hot and sharp.

“Woodrue!” He screamed the man’s name, no desire for stealth or pretenses. He just wanted the satisfaction of breaking him as much as he was breaking apart inside.  He could hear a voice inside warning him, it sounded like Yurima and all of the other masters he’d trained under. He knew it was a mistake going into a fight so raw but he pushed forward, swatting aside reaching branches and side stepping ivy that seemed to want to tangle around his feet and hold him back.

“Wooodrue!” He shouted again and he thought he heard a reply: distant, muffled… below.

The basement. His mind drudged up the blueprints of the house that he’d set to memory long ago and he stormed towards the kitchen. The branches were thickest there. In fact they seemed to have made a large sort of cage around the basement door he observed as he drew closer, almost like they’d created some sort of trap.

A trap that sprung when Woodrue opened the basement door and walked through.

“Anderson this is-” he cut off with a yelp as the door slammed shut behind him, seemingly of its own accord and Blaine watched as ivy stretched and twined itself around the handle. He didn’t know what was going on or why Woodrue looked so shocked at the state of his kitchen but he didn’t wait any long for him to collect himself or continue whatever ruse he had planned.

His enemy in sight Blaine’s mind emptied of thought. He grabbed a kitchen chair and swung it against the wall of branches at full force, the room filling with the sound of splintering wood. He swung once more and then let it fall. He pushed into the jagged opening in the cage, ignoring the scratch of broken branches against his skin as he watched Woodrue’s muscles tense in preparation for action.

The Welshman tried to leap on him while he was still fighting his way inside the cage, but Blaine saw the movement coming before Jason’s weight slammed into him. He felt the harsh jab of sharp ended branches against his back only momentarily. As Jason’s arms attempted to wrap around his neck he didn’t attempt to break free of the hold. He shot his hand up through the loop of his arms instead and grabbed his assailant’s throat, applying a steady pressure that Jason instinctively jerked away from.

It was easy then for Blaine to twist out of the space between their bodies, grab Jason by the arms and throw him back against the branches with a far too satisfying crunch. He knew he wasn’t supposed to feel such vindication at the sound of someone elses scream of pain, but he did. He felt as dark and twisted inside as Woodrue _was_ no doubt. This wasn’t the first time Blaine had ever seen evil in himself- he’d accepted the truth of his own darkness years before- but never had he quite thrown the flood gates open like this and embraced such violent rage.

That moment he and his enemy were one and the same: each grappling brutally with the other, possessed with the need to wrench the other apart, piece by piece if they had to. He felt every punch, kick, and scratch but this was a fight Jason couldn’t win. Blaine was better and he was mad for his destruction.

They quickly found themselves in a familiar position, with Blaine looming over Jason’s cowering form driving his knuckles into his cheekbones seemingly with the furious desire to hear them crack. He was screaming again, today seemed a day for that, so much so that his voice caught on a painful sob and then refused to start again. There was nothing but guttural angry sound and hot tears as he wrapped his hands around Jason’s pale throat.

He heard screaming again. At first he thought it was his own- another scream of rage- and then he had an surreal moment when he thought it sounded like his mother’s- that high shrill sound of total desperation that somehow formed his name and a plea to run all at once- but then he recognized the voice as Kurt’s. Wondrously, horribly, impossibly Kurt’s and everything froze in a moment of intense shock.

It was followed by such a wave of relief that it threatened to knock him over. It didn’t- but whatever winged demon collided with his side at the sound of a sharp crack sure did. The bite was small but it bloomed quickly into a much larger pain, made him feel as if he’d fallen into the jaws of a shark and was being bitten in half. He wasn’t aware of letting go of Woodrue- in his spinning mind it seemed as if whatever had just slammed into his side had actually thrown him several feet- but seconds later the man was looming over him, purple in the face and a gun in hand.

“You’re not at all what you seem, are you Mr. Anderson?” He thought he heard Jason ask but his ears were still wringing with the sound of that crack- a gunshot he realized, which meant he’d been shot and that would explain the icicle trying to dig its way through his abdomen- it was horrible, hot and cold all at once and so sharp with each breath he took.

“FREEZE!” An unexpected voice shouted. “LIMA CITY POLICE. DROP THE WEAPON NOW!”

Jason swiveled towards the kitchen doorway and fired towards Finn who threw himself back around the door with a loud curse.

Jason was moving towards the opening in the branches and Blaine knew that he had to stop him. Finn twisted around the doorframe just enough to get off a couple shots, but Jason had the better vantage point and soon he was forced to duck again as the scientist answered fire.

Something odd was going on with Blaine’s brain.

He was thinking but somehow his thoughts weren’t really connecting; commands weren’t going to his body like they should. He felt colder than he knew was right and dimly he was aware that he was laying in something very wet.

_Kurt’s here. Kurt was screaming and Finn is going to get shot._

He dragged himself forward, giving each movement his entire concentration. It required every ounce of will not to scream and pass out as the muscles in his abdomen screamed through an angry hole and vomited up more of his blood. That’s what was so wet… it was his blood. But he couldn’t think about that. His only thought was getting to Woodrue. Stopping him hurting Finn so that Finn could…. shit he was so dizzy…

Finn.

Had to help Finn…. because Finn needed to help Kurt.

He lifted himself by the arms and reached. He grasped the edges of Woodrue’s lab coat…

But even his will wasn’t strong enough to force torn muscles to work where they no longer could. He fell just as quickly back to the floor, his vision swimming as cold heat spread through his belly.

He’d wonder for years after that just what it was he saw. What he thought he saw was Jason step into the wave of ivy slowly creeping towards the basement door, and he thought he saw the vines spring to sudden and vicious life and wrap the man up like snakes.

Through the haze he would remember hearing Jason’s scream of shock as he was dragged up against the walls of the wooden cage and pinned there. He remembered Finn peeking around the door and then freezing with shock at the strange sight. And then he remembered hearing a rustle go through the ivy leaves, like wind passing only there wasn’t any, and then Kurt had appeared in the basement doorway.

He’d been naked but for blood dripping red and angry from metal cuffs around his wrists and ankles. In Blaine’s mind he’d looked ethereal, strangely pale even for Kurt, his eyes ebbing between impossibly blue and a strange electric green with similar flow to that of an ocean tide. They’d pulsed to the same steady rhythm of energy beating all around them and he’d had the fleeting thought that Kurt himself was the source. 

He’d discount this as some sort of hallucination brought on by bloodless because what Kurt did next wouldn’t make sense to him until quite some time later.

He stepped in front of Jason, his cold glittering gaze never having left his. He seemed to drink up the fear permuting off the other man as he stood waiting, a playful sort of grin tugging at his lips.

“It worked.” Jason gapped at him. “My god it worked!”

“So it seems.” Kurt lowered his lashes flirtatiously, peeking up through them as he asked, “Am I everything that you wanted, Jason?”

As he spoke a vine of ivy twined itself around Jason’s neck, but the man did not appear to notice it. His eyes, as was every eye in the room, were trained on Kurt. They drank him in as Kurt pressed his body against his and his fingers lovingly brushed the ivy locking his arms in place.

“Everything,” the scientist admitted with reverence. “Everything and more.”

“Very good,” Kurt purred against his neck.

“You want to kill me.” Jason stated the simple fact and Kurt’s smile only grew all the more sensual as his gaze focused on Jason’s moving lips.

“I want to kiss you.” Kurt pressed his lips flushed and full against Jason’s without needing permission. He devoured the sound of pleasure he made and shuddered when the other man’s moan became a choked sound. He opened his mouth wider, wanting to swallow that too.

Jason’s face was ashen when Kurt pulled away, his eyes too wide, and his forehead beginning to pop out with veins. The scientist didn’t appear able to speak, his tongue suddenly thick in his mouth as he tried in vain to swallow around it.

“Wh- what did you do?” He choked out hoarsely and Kurt attempted to soothe him with a shushing noise.

“You wanted me this way. Remember, darling?” Kurt crooned even as Jason continued to purple and began to thrash against his binds.  Kurt’s right hand wrapped around the ends of a broken branch. “You had a vision and I wanted to show you just how great it actually turned out to be. I want it to be the last thing you ever see.”

The vines holding Jason’s arm’s loosened and no sooner had they then the one around his neck began to wrap tighter and tighter. His hands flew up to his throat, desperately trying to rid himself of the thing choking him, but it was a wasted effort because without so much as a sound Kurt rammed the jagged end of the branch into his gut and the man’s body jerked to a still.

Jason didn’t have time or air to scream. Kurt leaned close and whispered into the dying man’s ear, “you were dying anyway but you shot the man I love. A wound for a wound, darling.”

Jason never answered because Jason was dead.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“I’ll ask you one more time officer. What the hell happened out there?!”

Shuester had never been this harsh with him before. Then again Finn was a model officer and usually a stand out leader. Usually he didn’t go MIA in the middle of a crisis and end up in a shootout that ended with a civilian dead and his brother behind bars.

“I told you, Anderson thought Woodrue had something to do with the explosion. He thought Kurt was dead and… well they-”

“They’re involved. I read the gossip mags. Go on!”

“I know it’s bad commissioner but Kurt’s my brother. My family was there and we all thought he was dead and it got really intense. So when Blaine took off I just got a funny feeling. So I followed. I didn’t want him to do something stupid… like throw himself off a bridge, you know?”

“Over some tail?” At Finn’s angry look Shuester gentled his voice. “No offense to your brother Hudson but everyone knows what Anderson is like.”

“Yeah well, it’s not like that with Kurt!” Finn snapped and Shuester put up his hands in a gesture of peace.

“Finn I’m on your side. You know I think you’re an exemplary cop.” Shuester pushed a glass of water across the desk, his features schooling into something more familiar and kind. “I want to see you sitting at my desk someday. But this situation is a mess and the public wants someone to blame. You need to tell me exactly how Woodrue died.”

“He fell on-”

“Don’t lie to me Hudson!” Shuester snapped. “I’ve got the report from Sam and the other officers who arrived on the scene. They had to cut Woodrue down, said he was hanging by some ivy. When they tried to help Anderson they said Hummel was hostile, that it took you to get him calm enough to let anyone near him. Now try again.”

“Kurt… Kurt stabbed Woodrue,” he was forced to admit. Fear for his step brother had his stomach cramping and he quickly added. “He had to. I swear to you commissioner, Woodrue was nuts. Anderson was already bleeding out and he had me pinned in a tight spot. Kurt only did what he had to do.”

“How do you explain the poison then?”

“What?” Finn didn’t know anything about poison. All he knew was that somehow Kurt had made plants move and he’d choked and stabbed a mad man to death. It was crazy but… but deserved right? Woodrue had blown up the lab with a bunch of people in it. He’d been doing weird experiments on Kurt and he’d shot Blaine. Kurt had gone a little mad. Maybe it wasn’t right to kill someone in cold blood but given the circumstances…. Finn didn’t care. Kurt wasn’t getting the rap for this. Not on his dime.

“The coroner found poison in his bloodstream. It was all over his lips. They say it was probably swallowed.”

Swallowed? Woodrue hadn’t swallowed anything …  wait lips?

He could suddenly see that weirdly intense kiss in his mind all over again. No way.

Well Kurt had made a fucking tree topple on a house and all that other shit so why not?

“I don’t…. I don’t know anything about that.” Finn stumbled around the lie, hoping that this time he got away with it. “For all I know Woodrue swallowed something in his lab before confronting Blaine and I. H-he must have known it was over, right?”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

_In the story of the decade Ecron Laboratories exploded today in what authorities initially thought to be the result of a chemical leak. Minutes later police received a distress call from officer Finn Hudson from here at the rental home of Dr. Jason Woodrue, an employee of Lima City University and the overseer at Ecron….._

Jeff Norsdon switched channels and sure enough Channel 7 wasn’t any better.

_….The most baffling thing of all is the people involved. 27 year old Kurt Hummel- a student in the PHD program and step brother to the officer on the scene, and strangest of all media darling Blaine Anderson. The 28 year old millionaire was rushed to Mercy Hospital in critical condition from a bullet wound…._

Channel 12 _….. Woodrue died in the confrontation and Hummel has been detained until trial…._

Channel 30 _…. Hudson released a statement that Anderson, suspecting Woodrue’s involvement in the explosion at Ecron, confronted Woodrue at his home where it was discovered he was holding Hummel captive……_

Jeff put his television on mute as his phone lit up on the table beside him. It had been ringing all day but after a while he’d put it on silent and let it be, unable to take the added stress of his friends on top of everything else.

He picked it up this time though, finally seeing the name on the screen he’d been anxiously waiting for.

“So?” He answered without preamble and he heard his oldest friend heave a frustrated sigh.

“Getting to Hummel right now is like trying to get into Fort Knox. Remind me again why I’m doing this?” Nick Duval asked him and Jeff sucked in a breath to launch into another desperate plea when he heard Nick chuckle dryly. “Relax, Jeff I’m not bailing. In fact I’m in. They let me talk to Hummel and I spoke to his father even.”

“And?”

“And I’ll be representing Kurt at his trial for a third of my usual price which he could at least be grateful for.” Jeff was too busy drowning in relief to put much stock in Nick’s grumbling.

“Oh thank god! You’ll make sure they get Woodrue right?! Kurt’s not a murderer Nick he-”

“My ass Kurt isn’t a murderer.”

“Nick! He’s your client.”

“And I’ve been doing this shit long enough to know when the guy did it or not Jeff.”

“It was self-defense! Woodrue was a quack. It’s all over the news.”

“Oh Woodrue was nuts all right but you didn’t just come out of a private meeting with our victim. He scares the shit out of me.”

“So what are you saying Nick? We just let Kurt take the fall for this?”

“No I’m not saying that,” Nick heaved another sigh. “The public should know what Woodrue was up to and you know I can’t discuss details but there was some fucked up shit going on… and Kurt… I don’t know what to tell you Jeff. He’s not right anymore.”

“What do you mean?” Jeff bit his lip, fear and frustration making him feel sick inside. “Just because he killed the guy? Woodrue got what was coming to him.”

“Yeah well, Kurt shouldn’t have been the one to give it to him. At least not like that.”

“Please, Nick.”

“Tell me one thing?” Jeff knew what he was going to ask before he finished. “Is this for Kurt… or is it for Anderson?”

There were two stages of living in Jeff’s mind and he called them before and after Kurt. In B.K. he’d been in love with Blaine and convinced that Blaine returned that love- though something always seemed to be holding him back. Neither of them had been out at the time so Jeff had naturally always assumed that to be the cause.

Whenever they were together he could feel the tension between them and neither of them had to say it out loud to know they were thinking about closing the distance and just going for what they both had so clearly desired. They went on like that for what had seemed like ages until Jeff had decided he was ready to be honest with who he was and what he wanted. He’d thought that maybe if he was brave then Blaine would be brave too, only Blaine had out right denied that there was anything more between them than friendship and ignored every last one of his calls after that.

Jeff had to learn from Nick a week later that Blaine had left to study a year abroad. Nick had been the one to be there through the difficult time of coming out, only made more difficult by the sudden and abrupt rejection of his crush, and it was Nick who had been there every time since. Blaine had come back and that year Kurt had come into the picture- back into Blaine’s picture- and the only solace Jeff really had from it all was confirmation that he hadn’t made up everything with Blaine in his head.

Kurt and Blaine were so obviously in love that it was something of a private joke amongst their friends, and Jeff felt for all of the women in his passing love affairs because he knew what it was like to think you had something real only to have it disappear like it never existed. He and Blaine had remained friendly over the years (most of the Dalton group had) but their friendship was never the same because Blaine insisted he was straight and the whole incident was something of a sore between them. If he was honest it angered Jeff to see Blaine be such a coward and he both pitied and resented Kurt for hanging on and proving what a liar he was.

Did he still love Blaine? Most days he thought not.

But then today was not most days. Today was the day the world rocked, when Blaine was in critical condition, and Kurt was locked away waiting for some judge’s decision. When Luis had called him and asked him to speak to Nick he hadn’t hesitated. No matter what he felt about their relationship Kurt and Blaine were undeniably a unit and with Blaine hurt and unable to help him… it all boiled down to knowing how much that would hurt Blaine.

“Nick…” He tried, but he’d been silent too long.

“Yeah that’s what I thought.” Nick sounded resigned and Jeff squirmed uncomfortably in his seat.

“Are you mad?”

“Mad that you still care about Blaine?” Nick scoffed and Jeff flinched. “No not really. He’s my friend too… I just… I just hate being in his shadow all the time. Because of you, especially because of you. Do you understand that, Jeff?”

He nodded and then blushed when he realized that of course Nick couldn’t see.

“Yeah.” He pushed his bangs out of his eyes and went for broke. “Nick you’re not second to me. You’re not some consolation prize. You’re my best friend. The best person I know. You’d do this for Kurt even if I didn’t ask you, even if Blaine didn’t love him because that’s the kind of person I know you are. It’s why you’re the best at what you do and why Sylvester wants you to aim for the D.A.’s office. You can stop people like Woodrue and help people like Kurt.”

“You really think I’m something, don’t you?” When Jeff heard the teasing note in his voice he smiled with relief and nodded again even though Nick couldn’t see him.

“More than something. I don’t know how to show you what it means to me every time you come charging in on your white horse to save my day.”

“Hmmm, well can I tell you what I’d like?”

“Oh I know what you’d like Duval,” Jeff chuckled.

“And…”

“I don’t know, Nick….Can we date first?”

“Jeff I’ve been in love with you since high school. What can I possibly learn about you at this point that would shock me out of wanting to marry you?”

“I just admitted I still have feelings for Blaine!”

“Yeah but I knew that.” Nick waved away that point like it was nothing. “And I also know that you love me and if you let me I’d love you ten hundred times better than he could and you’d forget all about him!”

“I’m just not sure is all, Nick.”

 “Why because you think _Blaine_ cares more about you? Blaine doesn’t even care enough about himself to-”

“Nick,” he warned. “Don’t pressure me. Not about this.”

“I’m sorry, you’re right. That was out of line.” Nick quickly apologized and Jeff felt some of his tension ease. He hated fighting with Nick, they so rarely did but when they did it was always about this. He was getting as tired of it as Nick was.

“I’ve been scared I guess,” he admitted. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to lose you, Nick.”

“You won’t. Not if you don’t push me away. Let me show you how good this can be. You know I’d give you anything Jeffery.”

“The world?” He asked, unable to help the way he felt like melting inside.

“Shining shimmering splendid,” Nick promised, and the thing about Nick Duval was that when he promised something he delivered. He really was the white knight on the white charger. It was the thing the people loved about him most; Jeff most of all.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“I want to see Kurt,” were the first words out of Blaine’s mouth when Luis entered his room at the hospital. As his doctor had assured him Blaine was conscious and stable; something of a miracle as he’d been shot at close range and the bullet had past straight through his abdomen. After a rushed surgery Dr. Wilson said that Blaine should be confined to several more days of bed rest with solid meals for his body to recuperate from the blood loss and the wound in his stomach to completely heal.

“I’m sure you do, Master Blaine, but Mr. Hummel is currently waiting trail and-”

“Trial! Woodrue kills 50 people and abducts him and _Kurt_ has to stand trial?”

“Kurt has to stand trial because a man died under suspicious circumstances and his brother had to explain how he ended up with a stake sticking out of his gut!”

*-*-*

“I want to see Blaine,” were always the first words out of Kurt’s mouth whenever the guard’s sat him down opposite of Nick. The other man wore the standard orange jumpsuit but the sleeves weren’t long enough to hide the angry red scars on his writs where reportedly he’d broken out of metal restraints.

“And I’m sure he wants to see you Kurt but he hasn’t been released from the hospital-”

“That wouldn’t matter to Blaine,” Kurt insisted. “He’d come. He’s angry with me because I killed Jason isn’t he?”

“And why would he be angry about that? Jason had just killed 50 people, destroyed your work and admitted to experimenting on you without consent. You heard him shoot Blaine,” Nick ticked off the details of the story as they’d be presenting it to the judge. “Surely he’d agree that you only did what Jason made you do?”

Nick was growing used to Kurt’s strange moods, if someone could get used to constantly feeling torn between danger and infatuation. Nick was very much a man in love but there was something down right intoxicating about Hummel that he…

He shook his head, trying to clear it and pinched his nose in frustration. He had a bit of a headache. Probably from whatever cologne Kurt was wearing. He didn’t know who had been thoughtful enough to send it to him in jail but he wished they hadn’t. It was too strong to ignore and downright distracting. What was it? Something floral yet surprisingly masculine… really fucking delicious if he was honest…

“You don’t know Blaine then,” Kurt chuckled darkly and Nick dragged his thoughts away from burying his nose against alabaster flesh and back to the clearly rather disturbed individual in front of him. “He’ll think he has to destroy _me_ now.”

“Why would he think that, Kurt?”

“Because I didn’t have to kill Jason, but I wanted to. I’d do it again.”

“But you did have to, Kurt” Nick reminded him pointedly even as a chill danced down his spine. “Because Jason had shot Blaine and was in the middle of a shootout with your brother.” Kurt cocked his head and observed Nick for a moment before he nodded. His face crumpled, his eyes clouding with tears and his shoulders slumping. Nick gapped as-like pulling on a mask- the Kurt he’d observed on so many occasions suddenly appeared.

“Y-yes. It was awful. I was so terrified. I just…. I just don’t want Blaine to hate me. I’m not a monster I know I’m not, I j-just couldn’t let him kill Blaine.” Kurt sniffed as tears spilled down his cheeks. “I love him. He’s mine,” he mumbled so quietly that Nick could barely hear him.

“He’s what?”

“He is mine!” Kurt’s voice was suddenly strong and cut through the silence in the room like a shout. “So where is he? He’s going to just let them lock me away _isn’t_ he?”

“Kurt, Blaine can’t get to you right now even if he wanted to. That’s why I’m here.”

“You, Mr. Duval are a bone, tossed at me, tossed at his conscience so he can say he tried even as he stands idly by and lets them lock me away where I can’t turn into the very thing he hates!”

“Kurt. Blaine doesn’t _want_ to see you go to prison. I promise you, you aren’t going to jail for murder.”

“Just going to be locked up and tested for everyone’s safety. Isn’t that right, Nick?”

Nick swallowed, flushing hot around the collar as Kurt leaned closer. Incredibly sharp and clear blue eyes pinned him to his seat and seemed to force the truth out of him.

“Yes. Woodrue’s experiments altered you. Your abilities are dangerous and the medical examiner confirmed your mind is in a fragile state. You’re chemically imbalanced and-”

“Crazy in other words?” Kurt chuckled and Nick watched as he lightly ran his tongue over his lips. Kurt’s lips were dark, as if they were flushed with blood. It seemed to Nick each time they met that they only grew darker. There were strange bruises appearing on his cheekbones as well, markings in the distinct shape of some sort of leaf. He was frightening just to look at damn it. Nick knew there was nothing he could do to keep Kurt out of Arkham at this point.

He’d be locked away with the rest of the criminally insane, holed up tight in the special ward for people like him with too much power and not enough sense to hide it. Maybe it was wrong, Jeff would hate him for thinking it, but Nick couldn’t shake the feeling of relief the thought of Kurt contained somewhere impenetrable gave him.

“They can’t keep me there, Duval.” Kurt seemed to read his mind. “They couldn’t force me to go if I didn’t let them.” Nick had no trouble believing that last part. More and more he sincerely hoped the former wasn’t true.

“But you’ll let them?” Kurt nodded. “Why?”

“Let’s call it a test of faith.”

*-*-*-*

“What are you talking about Lu?” Blaine gaped at him and Luis sighed. This was going to be as hard as he imagined.

“The word I’m getting from Mr. Duval and our Mr. Hudson is that Kurt is bound for Arkham and there is little anyone can do about it unless it can be proven that he isn’t a danger to himself and the public.”

“Well then we’ll prove it!” Blaine thundered. “Kurt wouldn’t hurt anyone unless they forced him too.”

“That is not true any longer, Master Blaine, and you know it as well as I,” Luis insisted. He watched Blaine closely, looking for the signs… and there, the briefest flicker of fear. Luis didn’t break his gaze, refusing to let his young charge hide from the truth.

“Are we to pretend then, Master Blaine, that we haven’t noticed the changes in Mr. Hummel? Am I to keep silent about what officer Hudson revealed to me?” Blaine gripped his bed rails and looked away but Luis continued. “Perhaps you can ignore what you saw, convince yourself you saw something different-”

“I don’t know what I saw Luis!”

“Well then I shall tell you what I saw!” Luis shouted over him. Blaine had the unfortunate practice of bottling everything up inside until it came screaming out of him. Luis had learned over the years that it was best not to retreat, that retreat would only force Blaine to retreat back into himself. “This morning when Jason told him how you’d betrayed him, I saw a different man in his eyes: a killer. I saw something dark in him, felt it brush past me and I saw those plants on the sill reach for him.”

Blaine’s eyes widened and he took several quick breaths but otherwise he didn’t move, and the silence between them grew heavy and taught. Luis could see his struggle not to cry and it broke his heart when he failed and tears began to stream quietly down his cheeks.

“I can’t let them lock him up in that place, Lu.” Blaine’s voice was as tiny as he probably felt.

“Blaine Anderson might not be able to suffer such a thing,” Luis agreed. He dug inside his pocket and withdrew an old black face mask, something Blaine hadn’t used since he was a teenager; he’d long since upgraded.

“But the time is coming, Blaine, when you have to choose between being a man in love and being guardian of this city.” He tossed the black scrap of cloth and Blaine caught it. Luis watched him stare at it.

He uncrumpled the black mask and smoothed it out over his legs. Then he finally looked up at Luis, and Luis would have given every last one of his remaining years to wipe that look off his face.

“So it’s either Blaine or Batman, no middle ground?”

“I’m afraid Sir, that they need to be one and the same. You can’t be at war with yourself. Those types of battles have the unfortunate result of the only casualty being ones self. And as I know you are all too aware, dear boy” Luis bent and stroked Blaine’s dark curls in a gesture that the young man had not allowed him to perform since he was a child. “You’re needed. And you know what you have to do.”

A/N:  Ivy!Kurt as drawn by bishinesspersonified (Deviantart). The artist who was so inspiring when I first started this. :D

 


	12. Chapter 12

_I swear that the evidence that I shall give, shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God._

“Dr. Havik could you please define for the court what a psychotic break is?”

“Psychosis is a feature of mental illness typically characterized by radical changes in personality, impaired functioning, and a distorted or nonexistent sense of objective reality.”

“Psychosis, this is something long term? It doesn’t come without warning?”

“Not necessarily. A person born with prestanding mental dysfunction yes, but a person suffering from illness, extreme physical or emotional distress can experience short term psychosis-”

“Meaning of course that the death of a loved one or the loss of a job could send a person on something of a tail spin?”

“Well it’s more complicated than that but theoretically yes. The average mind bears well under extreme stressors. There are any number of reasons why it could fail to do so and slip into a period of psychotic turmoil…”

“If I were to tie you to a lab table and set about altering your body’s genetic makeup on a whim how well do you calculate my mind would hold up?”

“Such a thing can’t be calculated but I’d tell you it’s likely that it wouldn’t. As I said the mind is a fragile thing and when you alter the working of it on a whim you tamper with a delicate balance.”

  _I swear that the evidence that I shall give, shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God._  
  
“Mr. Hudson, remembering your oath and at risk of trial for perjury, please tell the court if Jason Woodrue was armed at his time of death.”

“Yes, he’d shot Blaine. He was shooting at me!”

“But you said in your testimony that the plants tied him up. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Plants that it’s reasonable to suspect Kurt was controlling?”

“…Yes.”

“So I’ll ask you again. Was Woodrue armed at the time of his death?”

“No.”

_I swear that the evidence that I shall give, shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God._

“Did Woodrue show any signs of being an immediate threat to either yourself, officer Hudson or the defendant while under restraint?”

“Jason Woodrue was a threat to everyone he ever met! He’s responsible for mass murder counselor. How much more of a threat does a person need to be?”

“That’s not what I asked you Mr. Anderson. Was the victim an immed-”

“He is not a victim! Those people who died because they showed up for work, the man whose work and person were violated in almost every way a person can be violated – Kurt- he’s a victim! All of the people whose lives Woodrue destroyed out of greed, they’re victims counselor. I think you have this backwards!”

“Yes. Woodrue did all of those things. Yes. Yes you want him to pay. He should pay! But is it the citizen’s right to be both jury and executioner? Who gave Kurt Hummel the right to end a man’s life untried? He doesn’t have that right. No one does, because people do a number of wrongs every day. Can you honestly say that given the doctors examination and description of the defendant’s present mental imbalance that it will end with Woodrue? Can you protect the next person who does wrong in his eyes from whatever justice he deems fitting? I need you to answer the question at risk of perjury Mr. Anderson.  Was the defendant acting in self-defense when he decided to violently end the life of Jason Woodrue?”

“No.”

_I swear that the evidence that I shall give, shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God._

 

“Did Jason Woodrue force you to kill him?”

“Did he grab my hand and impale himself? Did he choke himself with ivy? No. He did lick the poison from my lips but in his defense he didn’t know they would poison him.”

“Why did you kill Jason Woodrue?”

“Because he deserved to die.”

“Would you hurt someone else you felt deserved to die?”

“Of course.”

-*-*- Kurt is 29 -*-*-

Kurt had been kept within the tight confines of the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the criminally insane for close to six months. Burt still remembered the day he had gotten that awful call from Finn and learned that his son was alive but hurt and hurt bad- not just in ways that would mend with time. Bones could be reset, cuts could be closed, but the mind… the mind got screwed up and sometimes there was no fixing it.

 _It is the ruling of the court that provoked into a psychotic break the defendant, Kurt Hummel, committed and is found guilty of manslaughter. While the court does not hold the defendant at fault for the circumstances of this break it is the ruling that for his safety and the safety of the public that he should be confined to Arkham institute until such time as he can pass a psychotic evaluation by licensed personal._  
  
Those words still echoed horribly in Burt’s head whenever he stood still long enough. His son had killed a man. Yes there was no doubt in anybody’s head that it had been deserved- anyone with sense that is- but the thing was you couldn’t kill someone, even if they deserved it, unless the government gave you license to do so. Kurt was locked up not because anyone blamed him for going a little nuts and getting the man who was responsible for countless innocent deaths but because he couldn’t show remorse, because he’d taken the law into his own hands and apparently could not see how that was wrong and why the offense should never be repeated. Therefore he was dangerous.

Burt knew all these facts. He’d had them repeated to his face and heard them repeated on every wagging tongue in Lima. Nothing about them changed the simplest fact of all that a psychiatric prison masquerading as a hospital was no place for his kid. Burt would give just about anything to get him out of there and bring him home but he wasn’t the one calling the shots here.

He wanted Kurt home but he wanted him safe more- it was a tight little corner to wage a war in. He wanted to go back to that time before all of this: before the cancer took Nora, before pain and heartbreak took the shine out of his kid’s eyes and made him doubt not just the world but himself, before the world proved just how dark it could be.  
  
Burt had been in this ward of the asylum too many times-the first had made him sick and he didn’t doubt  it would continue to make him sick until the day Kurt said goodbye to this place- and he was immediately recognized by the receptionist behind the desk. The blond haired woman smiled at him- the sympathetic kind of smile you give to someone when you know there’s nothing really to smile about. Burt shifted the potted plant he was carrying- a gift for Kurt- and tried to rustle up some sort of smile for her.  
  
“Hey, Mr. Hummel. Are you here to see Kurt?” The bubbly blond asked as she cracked her gum and Burt nodded.  
  
“Yeah…. Say could I talk to Miss Pillsbury before I go back and see him?”  Talking to Kurt was like pulling teeth and it didn’t seem to matter that Burt knew his son better than anyone, these days, these days he couldn’t read Kurt at all. He had no idea what was going on in his head and that left him feeling lost like he’d gone fishing without a pole or something.  
  
Getting insight from Kurt’s doctors wasn’t as easy as a person would think they’d make it for a parent looking out for their child but he’d found that Emma was the most empathetic and the most willing to discuss Kurt’s care with him. She gave him whatever she felt she could give him without breaking patient confidentiality and that meant a lot to Burt. He also hated it. He hated everything about this place.

  
He knew the woman was coming before he saw her. Another thing he could add to the hate list was recognizing the sound of her heels on the tile floor-if he never heard them again that would be okay. He tried to smile at her as she greeted him-he was trying to smile a lot lately.  
  
“Burt. It’s good to see you so soon.” The ginger haired woman extended a gloved hand for a quick shake.  
  
“Yeah, well Kurt was telling us how much he misses going outside and stuff so Carole wanted to get him a little something to make his room brighter,” Burt explained as he nodded to the large pot of flowers he carried. They’d made sure to have them potted in plastic pots because anything else and Kurt wouldn’t be allowed to have it.  
  
“Oh those are lovely. I’m sure Kurt will appreciate them,” Miss Pillsbury assured him, her already unusually large eyes getting rounder and softer with sympathy. Burt didn’t really feel like trading pleasantries any longer. He wanted to know how his kid was doing.  
  
“So how’s he doing?” He asked. “He seemed a lot better over the phone, even from the last time Carole and I were here.”  
  
“Well…Kurt is a very special case, as you know,” Emma replied with slight hesitation. She gestured for Burt to follow her as she led him through the maze of hallways and locked doors to Kurt’s room. “For most of the patients here this is a prison. They’re here because they’ve broken the laws in ways that would normally earn them a life in a jail cell. Kurt killed someone who-”  
  
“Who almost killed him in his sick experiments. That son of a bitch murdered someone to get to him and then murder a bunch of other people for the hell of it. I’d have killed him myself if given the chance!” Burt cut the woman off in quick defense of Kurt. He couldn’t help it. Every time he thought about Woodrue and what he’d done he was sorry he was dead because it meant he couldn’t kill the bastard himself.

They’d reached Kurt’s door but neither of them made a move to enter.  
  
“We understand that feeling Mr. Hummel,” Miss Pillsbury insisted laying a consoling hand on his arm. “Kurt may be released from this institution when I or Dr. Figgins judge him to be mentally fit for release.”

“Well then-”

“Burt, please, allow me to finish.” Emma raised one dainty hand to stave off his protests and Burt fell silent. “You must accept that your son has been through extreme emotional and physical trauma. We have no idea what damage Dr. Woodrue’s experiments may have done to Kurt’s mind and body. We have done extensive tests but there is still so much we don’t understand about the changes in Kurt’s biological make up. Things we may never understand. It has become evident Mr. Hummel that he has acquired some strange abilities. We don’t know how extensive they are but in his current state of mind he is-”  
  
“Kurt isn’t some freak. So he can make some plants move! I’m telling you he wouldn’t hurt anyone. I know he was…he was crazy for a while after Woodrue, but he has been getting better hasn’t he? I mean this isn’t permanent right? He’s finding his balance again…they’ve got pills or something for the mood swings?” Burt wasn’t sure who he was pleading with anymore. He and Miss Pillsbury had been through this over a thousand times.  
  
“Burt your son is not himself.” Emma went on in that same soft persistently comforting tone. Burt wished she’d yell at him, wished she’d just scream for him to give it up because then he wouldn’t feel so close to losing hope. “ Even medicated he isn’t level. At times he’s so lucid, so perfectly calm and steady, that you’d wonder why he was even here and then seemingly without provocation he becomes threatening and dangerous. A while ago a man came to visit him here and just hearing his name Kurt became extremely agitated. He had to be sedated during the visit as roots had come bursting through the floor trying to harm his visitor. Frankly Mr. Hummel I’m afraid if we release him he will slip into one of these episodes and only end up back here… for good this time.”  
  
“How is he? Now I mean. How is he now?” Burt asked past the lump in his throat. No matter what all of these doctors said he wouldn’t give up. Kurt had been through…Jesus he’d been through hell…and yeah he needed some time to heal. Well he’d do that-Burt had to believe he could do that- and then he’d come home.  
  
“Today’s a good day. We asked that his friend not visit him again and nothing else has come along to set him off.”  
  
“Who was it?” Burt asked. Who was it and what was it about them that had thrown Kurt back into rage? Somewhere inside he already knew.  
  
“Blaine Anderson. I advised against it but Dr. Figgins overruled me. Anderson Enterprises provides a lot of our funding,” Emma explained with another one of her sad smiles. “Are you ready to go in now?”  
  
Burt nodded and the woman slid her ID card through the security lock and the lock released with an audible click.  Burt pushed open the heavy steel door and plastered a tight smile on his face as he entered the small sparsely decorated room. Every room Kurt had ever called his own had been full of stuff, full of bright colors and odds and ends-all of it screaming Kurt. This room was dull and grey with too much space and absolutely everything was bolted down. It felt like the prison it was.  
  
“Dad!” At the sight of him Kurt rose from the bed where he’d been sitting reading an old newspaper and quickly crossed the room.  
  
“Hey kid!” Burt greeted him with cheer he didn’t feel. If there was any happiness in his voice it was happiness that Kurt was alive, that he was standing in front of Burt in loose white cotton pants and a hospital issued gown, smiling at Burt as if he’d come to visit at his apartment. “I got you a little something for the room.”  
  
When Kurt spotted the plant in Burt’s arms he went still. It was like someone had pressed the pause button on him. Burt would never get over this. His eyes got soft as he reached out a hand and grazed fingers over the plants dark green leaves and a bright smile of pure elation spread over his face. Kurt couldn’t look any more like his mother when he got around these damn plants.  
  
“The Miranda Rose,” Kurt greeted the flower like he was greeting an old friend and Burt beamed.  
  
“Yeah. I didn’t know what you’d like best. You’re always going gaga over anything green, but Carole said these were your favorite,” Burt rambled as Kurt took the pot from him and crossed the room to the window.  
  
“They are indeed, first favorite. They’re rare you know. They’re a special breed of _adenium_ that doesn’t grow in the wild,” Kurt explained as he set the flowers on the window sill. He stayed at the window, his back to Burt as he stroked their long thick stems. After a few moments had passed he added without turning around, “I feel like a father looking at these. I helped create them you know, with mom…years ago.”  
  
“Yeah. I remember.” Burt cleared his throat. He was unsure how to bring up Blaine, or if it was even wise to try and talk about him given Emma’s report of the episode he’d had. But there had to be something Burt could do other than pretend things were fine. Maybe if Kurt could just talk things out with someone he trusted someone who wasn’t a stranger.

“Has Blaine been to see you at all?”  
  
Kurt went still again and Burt wasn’t sure if he imagined it or not but the flowers swayed as if moved by a breeze.  
  
“Yes.” When Kurt finally responded his vice was cool. “I didn’t feel like seeing him.”  
  
“How come? I mean you’ve been friends a long time. You liked this guy right? I miss a lot but I never missed that. The night before… before it all happened you were with him.” Burt was uneasy, unsure if he wasn’t asking for trouble trying to get Kurt to talk but he needed Kurt to talk to him. He needed to understand his son so that he would know exactly where it hurt because he couldn’t dress a wound he couldn’t see.  
  
Kurt chuckled at this, the sound of it airy and musical but somehow unpleasant to Burt’s ears. It didn’t sound right, it was too secretive...too something.  
  
“Oh dear, he wants to know about Blaine. Should I tell him?” Kurt whispered and for a moment Burt couldn’t figure out who he was talking to, and then Kurt stroked one of the roses again and he realized he was talking to them. Something inside of Burt twisted. He couldn’t explain it but he wanted to take the damn things back, throw them out.  
  
As if he could tell what Burt was thinking Kurt chuckled again, darker and even more musicale and he pinned his father with a glacial stare that sent shivers down his spine.  
  
“I love the rose’s dad. The only plant I’ve seen since I got here is the ivy growing outside my window. It keeps trying to get in to meet me but the windows are thick and they are sealed pretty tight. More’s the pity,” Kurt sighed. “To answer your question. Yes dad, I did love the man once. Still do if we want to argue semantics. I gave him everything a man in love should give and he held it in his hands and considered it...”  
  
Burt watched Kurt pluck one of the roses and hold it up to the light streaming in through the window with head cocked.  
  
“He’s a smart man my Blaine. A planning man. He weighed the pros and the cons, considered all of his options and judged other things of higher value. He wanted all these other things more… but… he kissed my lips-” Kurt pressed the red petals of the rose against his lips and for the first time Burt noticed the deep color of them so offset by Kurt’s pale skin. It was as if they were painted. Could lips bruise?

“He planted hope within me like a seed. Time went on and I hoped and he deflected but from time to time I could make him forget himself. You see he wanted my kisses, as if they were drugs, as if they held nectar to quench a thirst and I would always give.” Kurt rubbed the petals against his lips and across a cheek. “I would have let him suck me dry, every last drop, as long as it meant I had a hold… that I was a part of him that he could not control like everything else. And this man, this man of signs and secrets, he would press his lips to mine and he would sip me, he would promise to give me everything. He never did. He can’t. There’s a higher vow he can’t seem to break.”  
  
What was he hearing? Burt wasn’t sure but he didn’t like it. He didn’t like seeing Kurt like this, he didn’t like fearing his own child and he didn’t like the thought that some asshole had been stringing Kurt along for years.  
  
“You should have told him to take a hike. You’re worth a lot more than that Kurt. No wonder you didn’t want to see him. Hell I'd have tried to strangle him with some plants too.” The words were rough coming out, and maybe not wise but Burt meant them. He was glad he said them when Kurt laughed short and quick and it didn’t make Burt feel nervous or scared, it filled him with hope and relief because there, there was a sound he knew. That was his kid.  
  
“I did.” Kurt said, smile once again morphing into something beautiful but unsettling. “Sometimes I want to kill him.”

“That happens with love…” Burt hedged. “But you know that no matter how angry you feel right now you can’t actually hurt Blaine.”

“Hasn’t he hurt me enough?” Kurt asked as if they weren’t calmly discussing committing possible murder. “He betrayed me. I gave him every opportunity to choose me and every single time he chose wrong!”

“Kurt look,” Burt dragged his hand down his chin and prayed that this went over well. “Blaine didn’t lie for you on the witness stand. Neither did Finn and much as I hate seeing you here I can’t fault them for that. It wouldn’t have done any good given the other officers testimonies even if they’d have tried and frankly… frankly kiddo they’d feel awful if you got off and you hurt someone else.

“So Kurt’s crazy?” Kurt seethed. “I’ve been kicked around, overlooked and taken advantage of my whole life. I’m always the one who gets to lose everything and everyone that matters to me and I just have to sit meekly and accept it? And when I think I’ve finally found something that matters and someone who understands me…”  
  
Burt’s heart sank, and he knew it was going to break again but that didn’t matter so much. He’d let his heart break a billion times to give Kurt a voice to express his pain, to know those pains. He still wanted to be sick. He wanted to punch something, to shake Kurt and yell, to hold Kurt and cry. He didn’t know what he wanted.  
  
“We thought it was beautiful didn’t we darling,” Kurt whispered to the rose in his hand. “He was larger than life, he had the water and the sunshine and he promised us nourishment and love. He stroked our petals just like this, just as I stroke yours. He plucked, just as I plucked you, and he said _What a pretty little thing you are. Smart boy, beautiful boy, my boy_. Only Blaine disagreed didn’t he? He said the doctor was a bad man, only that was the hunger talking…he didn’t really know. No one knew just how bad the doctor was. I was such a pretty little fool stretching toward his sun. I drank his lies and let him pluck. He tried to break me…”  
  
Burt stared in growing alarm as Kurt observed the flower in his hand. His grip tightened on the stem and Burt’s eyes widened even further as a rivulet of blood dripped down between his fingers. Kurt unfurled his hand and Burt could see blood both on his hand and on the stem of the rose that didn’t have thorns when he’d brought it in and didn’t naturally in any case.  
  
“So I broke him, with some help from my oldest friends.” Kurt smiled quietly to himself. He placed the broken stem back in the soil of the pot and watching the flower regrow its roots. “My whole life I’ve taken the high road. You know who invented the high road dad? The same people who never had any intention of taking it themselves.”  
  
~*~*~*~  Blaine is 32  ~*~*~*~

Blaine often thought about the dark. He’d chosen the bat as his symbol because it’s a creature of the night and highly accustomed to navigating the darkness. The bat is blind, much like people, but the difference between the bat and the average person is that the bat doesn’t depend on its eyes to see.

 

The bat has it so much better.

Blaine he’s human, a man, a man who swore to be more than one after a baptism in blood and darkness. He was this entire city really had for protection and he had done more to live up to his oath than anyone could reasonably expect but still it wasn’t enough.

He’d been divided inside. He’d ignored the obvious and indulged in reckless emotion without control and he’d made mistakes that had cost him the very thing he’d so selfishly reached for. He’d known he would going in so when that prosecutor had looked him in the eye he’d made a choice.

He’d done what he needed to protect all of the potential others where he’d failed to protect the one person who really mattered. Never again though, never again would he hold back and never again would he forget what his life was truly given for.

After Kurt was taken away, after his eyes burned into Blaine with so much betrayal and unmasked fury, he’d made some crucial changes. It had clearly been time to remove his weaknesses. Going into fights with bare flesh so easily wounded by poisonous darts and bullets was foolish, no matter how fast or skilled he was. He needed proper armor and as long as he was going to outfit himself he might as well have the best arsenal money could buy him.

It was lucky for him that the head of the Research and Development program within Anderson Enterprises was a friend of his. If he had to trust anyone than David was a friend he trusted with his secret. It was so perfect that Blaine couldn’t help but wonder if in his subconscious he hadn’t placed David on the fast track in RD exactly for the day he called him with the strange request to start a secret project: a project they’d have to cover up and hide from the rest of the company.

David and his people were constantly developing new technology and weaponry for the army and he trusted David to be the one to make Batman his own one man army. Never again if he could help it would he be overpowered and out gunned by a mad man and leave someone he lo-

He needed to forget about that, to think of things differently. He was charged with protecting innocents like Kurt and never again would someone gun him down with ease. He’d not be so rash next time before going into a fight. Batman couldn’t afford romantic entanglements. Clearly.

“What’s with you today? Do you not like the changes to the suit?” David asked as he watched Blaine take down another robotic assailant. He’d been through enough of these test runs by now to be familiar with Blaine’s scary focus but today he was raw and aggressive in an unsettling way.

“It’s stiff in the shoulders. It’s messing with my aim.” Blaine bit out the retort even as he continued to make mincemeat of another mechanical aggressor. David wasn’t used to this whole thing yet. Sometimes the fact that one of his best friends masqueraded as a masked vigilante every day still made him stop and get the shakes just thinking about it.

“I can make some alterations, but come on, Anderson, a stiff suit isn’t what’s messing with you.” Blaine didn’t respond but then again maybe he was speaking through the volume of his punches as they raised. “You try and talk to Kurt again?”

“NO!” Blaine turned and thundered at him and robot number 36 clobbered him over the head so hard that David had to wince for him. Blaine swayed backwards and then with renewed vehemence tore into the machine with several rapid jabs and then kicked it into the wall.

“Fuck!” He practically roared. “Turn it off.”

Wordlessly David turned off the combat program and the remaining robots in the room fell silent and still.

“Sorry Blaine, I won’t bring up Kurt in the middle of-”

“Don’t do it ever from now on!” Blaine ordered darkly and David started to scowl.

“Right because he doesn’t exist and he isn’t what’s eating at you.”

“Don’t David.” So David didn’t. For a bit anyway, he kept his silence as Blaine changed out of his suit and rejoined him in the practice arena.

“You heard about the people protesting Nyteck?” He asked knowing that since Blaine’s uncle was the chairman of Nyteck that he must have. “They want to dig for oil in that condemned village. The one Kurt was trying to save.”

“They’ve been pushing relocating the villagers for a year. I’ve campaigned against it, funded every protest group in the city. What more exactly am I supposed to do about it David?” Blaine asked turning in a huff, some sweat went flying with the movement of his head.

“I didn’t say you could do more, I just thought you’d be interested in knowing that a little birdy told me Kurt is going to be released.” David watched Blaine carefully and it didn’t really surprise him when his friend went still and momentarily speechless.

“What?”

“Yes. Rachel told me that Finn told her that he’s being evaluated for release. Apparently he wants to add his voice to the protestors.”

“That’s…. that’s wonderful for them. I’m happy for him and his family.”

David rolled his eyes and walked briskly behind Blaine as he started stomping for the stairs.

“Blaine don’t you think it’s worth trying to talk to him now that he’s not in the middle of a psychotic break? I’m sure he understands that everyone was just doing what they had to.”

Blaine paused and David could see him considering his words. The last three years had been hard on everyone, picking up the pieces after a tragedy always was a hard thing to do. But David agreed with Wes whenever he said that Blaine was the biggest tragedy they knew. He was utterly cut off from the world and as now that David had a front seat to observe the life and times of Batman masked avenger, he could see that Blaine was more terribly cut off from himself.

“Even if he did, what good would that do David?” Blaine asked as if to confirm David’s thinking. “What really can I give him? I learned the hard way that Batman can’t really afford love. At least not to do anything more with it than this,” he gestured to the room behind and below them, his cave, and scowled. “I can protect him, I can protect them all, but I can’t do that if I’m torn between being an ordinary man and _this._ ”

“Well then stop trying to be an ordinary man.” David grunted as they climbed the last of the stairs. “Ordinary or extraordinary there’s still a man in there somewhere and if you keep chopping him up all you’re going to be is a hot mess.”

“Are we speaking on Master Blaine?” Luis was waiting for them at the top of the stairs with door open letting daylight from the hallway spill into the relative darkness of the passageway they were exiting from.

“Aren’t we always?” Blaine grumbled even as he accepted the towel Luis offered to him with an extended arm.

“You are my favorite mess, Master Blaine.”

“So you, the one who told me to choose between Blaine Anderson and Batman, you want me to go see Kurt too?” Blaine demanded, pinning Luis with a hard glare as he wiped the sweat from his face.

“I said no such thing. I said the two need to be one and the same.” Luis took the towel from him and Blaine strode down the hall the other two trading glances behind him. “ _You_ sir are Batman, it’s not the cape that makes the hero but the man, and so you must know that man.”

“I know who I am Luis!” Blaine shouted over his shoulder and Luis made a rude noise.

“And who is that pray tell?”

“I’m the idiot who’s going to crash in on the man who promised to kill him if he ever saw him again.” At David’s shocked squawk Blaine’s face split into an all too rare rueful grin. “ I guess I’m still Kurt’s in other words.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Emma knew all about Blaine Anderson, not a person in this city didn’t. She’d been in college when the news exploded with the deaths of his parents and she could recall the frequent images splashed across television screens of a small boy trailing behind a pair of coffins with stark clarity.

He’d been so tiny back then, tugging at the hearts of Lima’s thousands with his obvious fragility and the weight of grief so heavy on his shoulders. But the man standing next to her couldn’t have been any more different. Taller, stronger, he stood quietly beside her all contained energy and sure confidence. Nothing of his nerves- if he felt any at all- showed on his face or in his cool demeanor as he waited for her to open the door to Kurt’s room.

She paused, taking a moment more to consider him. A handsome man in excellent shape- a shape that many of the nurses had talked about long after his last visit- a powerful man who knew his place in the world and commanded respect without so much as a word uttered. She knew his reputation as a ruthless business man, an ardent if careless lover but the longer she stared at the man next to her the less she felt she truly knew about him. Blaine Anderson for all of his public exposer was so much a mystery.

Kurt had told her things in his therapy sessions, things that made her wonder where the man that her patient felt he knew fit in with the man beside her.

“Is there something I should know before I see him?” Blaine asked, probably his way of questioning why she hadn’t opened the door yet. “Last time I was here he got pretty upset.”

“Kurt’s condition is unique but he has been steadily improving while under our care and this last year he has shown tremendous improvement. When we asked him if he would see you he was…” Emma searched for words and though Blaine’s composure never wavered she thought she saw something in the tensing of his shoulders that betrayed his nervousness. She smiled warmly at him deciding to place her own worries aside for the moment. “He was very happy Mr. Anderson. I think he has missed you.”

“Yes, well…” A hesitant smile, something real and tender creeped onto Blaine’s face and Emma felt the last of her worries slip away. She had wondered why Kurt had suddenly decided to take medication without a fight and he’d become compliant with treatment seemingly overnight. But if there was someone like this on the outside waiting for her… well..

“I’ve missed him.” Blaine said and Emma heard _I love him,_ and it was all the same in the end.


	13. Chapter 13

Walking through the door of Kurt’s cell- a bolted steel door with grated plexi glass could be called nothing but the door to a prison no matter what anyone else tried to call it- had the gravity to it of stripping off his shirt and walking into the middle of a crossfire.

He hadn’t seen Kurt in over two years.  After his one disastrous visitation attempt he was never allowed back and after discovering how torturously painful staring at Kurt through a one way mirror could be he after a while he had stopped allowing himself to come back. He’d not moved on; on the contrary he felt as if he must never allow himself to forget how much he’d failed Kurt and ultimately failed himself. But David and Luis were insistent on him seeing Kurt and if Blaine were honest he wanted to. No, frankly he needed to because when all was said and done he loved Kurt and if by some miracle Kurt could forgive him he’d do whatever he could to make it up to him. 

He walked into Kurt’s room that afternoon composed outwardly, no sign of the way his stomach twisted in on itself or his heart raced anywhere on his face.  When Miss Pillsbury nodded towards the window Blaine caught his first glimpse of Kurt, nowhere on Blaine’s face did his shock at all of the changes in him show. The breath he caught was so slight only Blaine should have ever known about it.

Kurt seemed a bit taller, though it was hard to be certain. He seemed paler but not in the sick way that he remembered, his skin like something out of a fairy tale where it would be likened to snow and alabaster. His hair was longer. Not in the wild disarray he remembered from his last visit but carefully styled the waythat Kurt had always loved; the deep brown of it showing hints of red where sunlight from the window cast a halo around his head, making it appear almost auburn.

His eyes were bright, sparkling as he pruned one of the plants on his sill. There were a dozen or so of them Blaine noted absently, a couple of years worth of Christmas and birthday gifts from his family no doubt. At the thought Blaine’s eyes caught on the large pot of deep blue flowers by the bedside, cape forget-me-nots, an anonymous gift that Kurt would have no reason to discard but for reasons unexplainable sent a wave of relief crashing through Blaine at the sight of them, potted and tenderly placed at the head of the place where Kurt slept.

And then his eyes were pulled back to the man at the window as if they couldn’t bear to be anywhere else, and he thought to himself that Kurt had impossibly become more beautiful with years and if he could freeze Kurt as he was now he’d do it. And then Emma cleared her throat and Kurt’s tender gaze lifted from his plants, flicked in surprise to Emma and then froze on Blaine.

“Blaine.” He said it like a prayer and the horrible sense of waiting Blaine hadn’t even realized he’d been living with for so long, finally began to dissipate as Kurt’s face split into a smile. He stepped forward as if he would rush to him but just as quickly he seemed to remember himself and he paused, mouth opening to say something but finding suddenly that he had nothing ready to say.

“Good evening Kurt, your visitor is here.” Emma stumbled through the obvious tension with forced cheer. “I’ll leave the two of you alone but remember you have dinner hour shortly and your session with Carl this evening.”

“Thank you Dr. Pillsbury,” Kurt replied, busying himself as he set down his pruning scissors and removed his gardening gloves. “Um… I don’t suppose there’s any way that I could be excused tonight?” Kurt’s gaze flickered to Blaine and though his blush deepened he squared his broad shoulders and continued, “I’d like some time with Mr. Anderson.”

“I’m afraid not, Kurt.” Emma shook her head sympathetically. “Your evaluation is on Monday and we don’t want to give Dr. **Figgins** any reason to ask questions. It’s best to stick to schedule.”

“Oh of course not, you’re right.” Kurt nodded nervously. Emma smiled encouragingly at him as she moved past him to exist. Blaine watched Kurt who watched Emma’s back until it had retreated through the door and it had shut with a final sounding thud.

When it didn’t appear as if Kurt would speak, or even look at him, Blaine took a deep breath and decided to bite the bullet.

“I wanted to see you. I hope… I hope I’m not…” he hoped Kurt hadn’t agreed just because he was frightened of doing anything that would look bad during his evaluation. The thought made him feel sick just to think of it but he couldn’t seem to put the words together. Kurt was looking at him now, watching him carefully with a slight tilt to his head. Gathering himself together Blaine decided to approach this like he would any meeting at Anderson Enterprises.

“How are you Kurt?” He asked, watching Kurt as the other man formed his answer. He had to view Kurt as potentially dangerous now.  During his trial he’d made it clear he’d kill if he felt it was necessary and it was no secret that he desperately wanted out of hospitalization now because of everything going on with Nyteck.  Blaine couldn’t afford to be stupid about this. If he felt at all that Kurt was better off contained where he was, he should see that it happened that way. He knew that he could, and what was more Kurt knew he could as well; it was why even had he wanted to Kurt couldn’t have refused to see him. 

“Great actually,” Kurt finally answered with a rueful smile. He gestured to the pruning scissors on the sill and quipped, “They let me around the sharp stuff now.” Kurt laughed a little awkwardly and Blaine tried to smile but it was hard to when jokes like that only reminded him of the awful reality of the place they were standing in.

“You can laugh Blaine,” Kurt said gently. He looked a lot more certain as he sighed and gestured for Blaine to have a seat in the chair by the bed. It looked as if Kurt had pulled it over from the desk in preparation for a visitor and for some reason that made some of the tightness in Blaine’s chest loosen.

“So I knew this was going to be hard but nothing ever compares to reality does it?”

“This doesn’t have to be hard,” Blaine assured him, sitting in the chair as Kurt took a seat on the bed across from him. “We were friends once.” Kurt didn’t answer immediately, a single brow arched high on his forehead as he considered Blaine’s words.

“I recall,” he finally replied. “I also recall that on the brink of my mental breakdown we were a lot more than friends.”

“Yes,” Blaine could hardly deny it, but he had to make sure that Kurt knew he didn’t expect them to return to that. They couldn’t even if he did. “But that was three years ago and you are only just getting your life back. A lot has changed, Kurt.” Blaine watched Kurt go almost imperceptibly stiffer as he turned to Blaine with a thin smile.

“Oh so you’re seeing someone now?” Blaine nodded, because Blaine was always seeing someone, and Kurt’s thin smile widened into something more resembling a grimace. “Is he nice? I’d say she only I don’t think you’d have gone back in the closet after the trial. Not much of a point after me, right?”

“Kurt…”

“No stop,” Kurt waved whatever words he might have said away. “You’re right. Three years is a long time.  I didn’t expect you to wait for me, it’s really my own fault that you didn’t. The last time I saw you I tried to kill you. I want to apologize for that.”

“Kurt,” Blaine knew on one level he should just leave it but he couldn’t let Kurt think that because of what Woodrue had done he _deserved_ to lose his love. He hadn’t lost it at all… it was just that Kurt had always deserved so much more than Blaine could give him. “Nothing Jason Woodrue did was your fault.  You had every right not to be okay after what he did to you.”

To his surprise Kurt just grinned sardonically at him and asked, “So you weren’t in the least upset by my trying to strangle you?”

“Well of course I wasn’t thrilled but…” Blaine fell silent as Kurt began to chuckle at him. He glanced down at Kurt’s hand with a slightly dumbfounded expression as it reached to cover his where it rested on his knee.

“Blaine. I love you and I tried to strangle you once. Let me apologize.” Kurt’s lips were slightly open with his laughter and Blaine felt his heart begin to pound in his chest. Alluring was not the word for Kurt Hummel, it didn’t even begin to cover it.

Of everything Kurt had said the present tense of Kurt’s love was what Blaine stuck on.

“Love?” He asked and Kurt’s sardonic little smile turned soft.

“Yes. I don’t expect to change the past or go back in time. What’s done is done,” Kurt drew back, his gaze going to the window for a moment before his eyes returned to bore into him. “But you insult me if you think three years is enough time to make me forget you.” Kurt bit his lip and for the first time Blaine noticed how dark they were, as if someone had kissed them bruised and swollen till they stood out against his pale skin. “And I won’t let you forget me either,” Kurt said and Blaine wasn’t thinking at all when he replied.

“Forget you? Kurt there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about you.” It wasn’t smart to say and it wasn’t planed but then again Kurt had always been good at making him say the unplanned. But things had to be different now. “So what is it you want?” He asked. “What made you decide to cooperate with the care here and ask for release?”

Kurt’s lips pressed together as he watched Blaine, and Blaine could see him taking in the moment and judging it for what it was. Blaine had as good as admitted he was still in love with him, dangerously affected by him to be truthful, but he wasn’t going to be led around by his dick. If Kurt was dangerous he was staying here where he could be safe and the public would be safe from him. They both knew Blaine had the power to make that happen and Blaine wasn’t going to let Kurt forget it.

“Linda,” at Blaine’s confused lift of brow Kurt continued on as if they were merely discussing the weather and not whether or not he would spend the rest of his life in an asylum. “You remember Linda Holland? She lost her husband in the blast and all of her life’s work, just like I did. When she heard about what happened to me she volunteered to work with the doctors here in order to study my condition.”

Blaine had known that, he’d been keeping tabs on Kurt but maybe he should have been paying closer attention because he had no earthly idea what Linda could have done for Kurt that could bring about this turn around.

“Well to put it in laymen’s terms what is wrong with me amounts to an extreme chemical imbalance.” Kurt explained. “In other words I’m extremely bipolar… of sorts. It’s a bit more complicated than that of course but it’s an appropriate enough comparison.”

“And since chemical imbalances can be levelled in most cases…” Blaine summarized and Kurt nodded.

“Linda’s been working on a serum to level me out. At first I resented it, hated her for even getting near me with it. I wasn’t in my right mind at all but I felt like she was trying to take something from me,” Kurt’s eyes went to the plants by his bedside and he reached out a hand to touch their leaves. “I’m different now. Stronger than I was and I understand so much more about plants and their biology than I ever did before. There’s so much I could do Blaine, so much I could make right.” Kurt’s eyes had taken on a light, lit from within by a passionate glow that made Blaine all at once wary and filled with awe. Kurt’s passion had always been a remarkable thing to look at.

“The serum has its pros. It makes it easier for me to think, to reason, it makes everything less volatile… but it also makes _me_ less. It messes with my abilities and leaves a strange aching numbness in its wake.” Kurt stroked the leaves of the forget-me-nots one last time and turned back to him with a slight grimace and a shrug. “It frankly sucks but if it’s a trade between my special gifts and my mind it’s no contest.

“Let’s me be clear Blaine. In the state of mind I was in I don’t know if I’d have ever agreed to submit to Linda’s treatment if it weren’t for my father and the rest of my family. My father especially is a very smart man, he brought me newspaper clippings of all of the stuff going on with Nyteck and reminded me of the promises I made to those poor people… how much he believed in me and hadn’t given up hope that I would ‘lick this thing’ and go out there and stop what was happening to them…” Kurt smiled fondly at the memory of his father and Blaine watched as that fondness turned to determination and that fire came back to his eyes.

“That’s what I intend to do Blaine. I decided I wasn’t going to let people stand in my way. Not Woodrue, not your uncle, not you, and certainly not me. Nobody is stopping me.” Blaine believed him. He looked at Kurt and saw the impassioned young man he’d fallen in love with, the one whose heart was too big and his dreams even bigger. In that moment he was both mother hen and lioness, there was such a glitter in his cerulean gaze (the green of them standing out so brightly) that Blaine could do nothing but freeze and hope he was not the prey this hunter was after. Kurt blinked and just like that the spell was over, Blaine was breathing as if time had never stopped and Kurt was shrugging as if the moment had never been.

“I let Linda start sticking me with her needles and it’s not perfect…. I’ll always struggle, some days more than others, but the doctors see no reason why I can’t have a happy normal life. That’s what I want. To be happy,” Kurt smiled encouragingly at him, sharing a private joke and added, “Nothing would make me happier than to stop your Uncle Phillip and bust up his million dollar deal to disrupt an entire people group and destroy a priceless section of rainforest.”

“Uncle Phil is going to want to bury you,” Blaine warned him. And then with a slow creeping smile he dared to allow himself to believe it. “My money is on you though.” They were grinning at each other because Kurt was going to be okay.

“And there you are,” Kurt said softly he reached to grasp Blaine’s collar. He never broke their gaze. “I was beginning to think I’d lost your for good this time.” Blaine’s smile widened till it hurt and his eyes stung with tears because the pain was real and this happiness had come at such cost. He could finally be happy again because Kurt was going to have a happy normal life, he was going to pick up his work, and even if things were never quite right between them again Blaine couldn’t care about that. Kurt was okay. That was all that mattered when for so long he’d thought that Kurt would never be okay or happy. That other reality had been such a nightmare for so long and Kurt so lost to him.

 Kurt nodded as if Blaine were speaking his thoughts aloud, murmuring his name admits soft comforting sounds as he leaned forward  and pressed his lips to the curve of Blaine’s cheek. Blaine made a sound, something like protest- because this was the one thing he wanted-always wanted- but couldn’t let them have and Kurt made a shushing noise.

“ _Shhh_ I know, Beautiful, I know.” He peppered Blaine’s jaw with soft lingering kisses and Blaine just couldn’t do anything else but wrap his arms around him and pull him to his chest tight. To have something he’d thought was lost to him returned warm, tender, heart racing against his was too much for him to resist. He was just a man after all; a man in love with Kurt.

“I’m so sorry. I should have protected you better. You never deserved any of this and I’d give anything to go back.” Blaine gripped Kurt’s shoulders tightly and pushed him back so that they were eye to eye because this he needed to say, this Kurt needed to hear, this was truth as earnest as he would ever speak it. “Kurt I never know what I’m doing with you… I came here and I knew what I had to do. Damn it I know what I have to do but… but then I’m with you and it’s so clear that I shouldn’t do anything else but simply be with you. You’re under my skin and I can’t get you out and I don’t want to. Kurt I can’t think when it comes to you and that’s just asking for trouble, that’s why I shouldn’t do this, I have to stop I…. Kurt you’ll kill me.”

For some reason he wasn’t surprised when Kurt nodded slowly. The taller man leaned forward till his lips hovered just over his, tempting Blaine to close the scant distance between their mouths as Kurt’s breath tickled his face. Kurt’s lashes lowered and his lips tilted up in the corners as he whispered, “I might. You might even enjoy it.”

# # # # # # # # # # # #

Blaine tasted exactly as he remembered and so much more beyond that. Kurt fought the urge to sigh into his mouth as he pressed their lips together and slid his tongue between his lips at the sound of his gasp. Kurt chased the sound, chased Blaine’s warmth and passion and demanded he yield it all to him because there was no going back for them.

Couldn’t Blaine see that? Kurt had given everything to him that night in his bedroom when he was seventeen, possibly ten years before that when he was seven and the most beautiful boy he’d ever seen promised to love him no matter what he did or who he became.

Blaine would, Blaine did, even now. Kurt didn’t need him to say it. He could see it in his face, hear it in his voice, could practically feel it leaking off his skin. Blaine was the only one who thought he could hide behind his walls, who deceived himself into thinking Kurt hadn’t learned how to scale them years ago.

Three years. He’d wanted to touch this man for three years and now Blaine was in his arms and shaking against him as if he were about to rattle himself apart and Kurt absolutely was not letting go. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about whatever man Blaine had plucked up to wear on his arm and warm his bed for appearances sake. Blaine was his, he’d already admitted it and soon enough he’d stop fighting it and truly be his again. Blaine would give him everything. Kurt wouldn’t tolerate less.

“Kurt.” Blaine’s hands on the side of his face held him tighter, his lips pressing hard against Kurt’s demanding more of his tongue, more of his taste. And then just as suddenly he was pulling away. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”

Yes he should. Kurt had to fight the urge not to bite down on his tongue. He’d have liked to remind Blaine that stupid words could hurt. He’d have liked to swallow the sounds of his pain and taste his repentance and his desire mixing up with the salt of his blood, but that was exactly what he _couldn’t_ do. Good boys didn’t think about such things.

Instead Kurt just nipped his bottom lip- a little harder than he intended- he couldn’t seem to help that- it was such a struggle being good- and pulled slowly away.

“I know. It won’t happen again,” he promised. And surprisingly enough he meant it. He wasn’t going to kiss Blaine again until he asked for it. “If you don’t want this anymore I won’t pressure you and I won’t wait around for you like I did last time. But you should know that right now it feels like I’m never going to love anyone like I love you. I wish you’d see that now… When you’re ready you had better hope I haven’t found the guy who changes my mind yet.”

“I hope you do…” Blaine admitted with such a pitiful look Kurt was torn between wanting to gather him close and hitting him over the head with something heavy. “It would kill me to watch but I want you to know that I hope you do find someone who makes you forget me. God I’m going to hate him so much.”

“Not possible Anderson, so you can put that thought right out of your head. I’ll never forget you.” Kurt pressed a final kiss to his cheek and leaned back. He laughed and asked with only the barest hint of bitterness, “So this boyfriend. Do I have a chance of liking him at all or is he just another piece of arm candy?”

“Joshua?” Blaine couldn’t believe Kurt actually was genuinely interested in his latest boy toy, it was written all over his face. Of course Kurt wasn’t thrilled about yet another obstacle between them but it didn’t threaten him like it used to. “He’s an singer, a friend of Rachel’s actually. She dragged me out with him one night and made me promise not to hurt him.”

“So he got more than the customary week of whirlwind dates and ‘slam bam thank you ma’am’?” Kurt guessed and he smiled, pleased with himself, when Blaine flushed.

“Something like that. He’s nice, Joshua, a great guy. We enjoy each other.”

Kurt was about to comment on what a firecracker romance that sounded like when the latch on the door clicked loudly and the door opened with its now all too familiar hiss. He couldn’t wait to be rid of this place. Through the door waltzed Brittany S. Pierce, one of the resident nurses. Bright, blond, bubbly and as Burt liked to put it daffy, Kurt honestly had no idea how she’d earned her nursing degree or a position at Arkham in the first place but he couldn’t have been gladder for it.

He greeted her with a bright, genuine smile as she gazed curiously at the two of them before smiling back.

“Hey Kurt, sorry to bother you, but it’s dinner hour now. Emma wanted me to remind you and make sure you made it okay.” Her eyes flicked to Blaine and she waved at him with just the tiniest bit of shyness. “I’m Brittany. Kurt told me you were hot but you’re a lot bigger than you are on TV.”

Kurt had to hide a chuckle behind a cough at Blaine’s utterly confused look. Brittany could be strange no doubt, often thinking on plane completely different than anyone else around her. To some it made her seem ridiculous (possibly why she was most often regulated to running the desk and whatever errands Emma could come up for her) but to Kurt who knew all too well the burden of having a mind that no longer worked within the parameters of normal she was a kindred spirit. She was Brittany, and she somehow understood him like no one else in this place could and didn’t fear him at all.

“Well thank you,” Blaine ever the picture of manners replied. “I’m sure that if Kurt and I had been in better contact I’d have heard all about you. You and Kurt are close?”

“Yes,” Brittany nodded eagerly. Then she seemed to really take note of Blaine, concern etching itself across her face as she considered him carefully. “They don’t really encourage us to befriend the patients but I don’t see why not. Do you believe that patients are people too Mr. Anderson?”

“Of course,” Blaine answered a little hesitantly, but his smile was still warm for her and Brittany’s answering smile was radiant.

“Yes, and people need friends no matter what kind of people they are. If they have friends they’ll be better people right? People don’t hurt their friends.”

Oh Britt, Kurt sighed. For her it was that simple, and Kurt all at once loved her for such naiveté and hated her for it. It was thinking like this that would get her hurt eventually. Living in such a dream world was what made her prey to people like Santana and would make it so easy for a man like Blaine to bruise her. Kurt tensed, waiting for Blaine to say the obvious, to be one more person to chip at the castles of clouds that Brittany called home.

But Blaine only continued to smile at her, nodding in agreement and glancing at Kurt with unspoken words in his eyes. “No, they don’t. Not if they love them.” Kurt heard the underlining regret in his words, the apology for all their past hurts and the promise for a better future. He wanted to take Blaine’s hand, kiss his cheek again, but with Britt in the room he settled for an encouraging smile, hoping that Blaine saw everything that he felt as clearly as he saw Blaine.

“Ah but it’s dinner hour so I should be going,” Blaine said after a moment. “I’ll see you Monday, at your hearing Kurt?”

Kurt nodded, not bothering to hide his pleasure at Blaine’s offer to be there and Blaine smiled back at him.

Blaine stood and after shaking hands with Brit and insisting it was a pleasure to have met her he was gone. Kurt watched him leave an insistent little urge inside that wanted to stand and call him back. He’d worried before about seeing Blaine again after all this time, but from the first sight of him standing in the door with Emma all of his questions had been answered.

Brittany frowned as the door shut behind Blaine and she looked so despondent that Kurt had to ask.

“What’s wrong Britt?”

“You and Blaine, I was really worried he wasn’t going to be like you said- sometimes people are uglier than you remember- only he’s not. He’s beautiful.” Brittany plopped into Blaine’s abandoned chair and pursed her lips.

“Yes,” Kurt agreed with a smile, rising from the bed. “I think so. But that’s not really a reason to look like someone kicked your cat is it?”

“Don’t be silly Kurt, if someone kicked poor Tubbington he’d just roll; I’m not sure it would even hurt him he has so much stuffing,” she giggled to herself and Kurt scoffed, thinking it was quite possible that Brittany’s outrageously overweight cat might just in fact be immune to metaphorical cat kicking.“ But you’re right. I’d be horribly upset with anyone who kicked him, and it really upsets me that you’re in love with Blaine.”

“Why would that upset you?” Kurt paused on his way to the dresser. He always tried his best to tidy his appearance before going down to meals. When patients weren’t on lockdown they could have community style meals and though everyone present would be wearing the same depressing uniforms Kurt could at least make sure his hair was fantastic. “Aren’t you always the one championing love and asking me questions about him?”

“I don’t want you getting hurt, Kurt.” She insisted, twisting in the chair in order to watch him get ready. “Nothing hurts like a broken heart and if you’re hurt then you’ll get angry and well… bad things happen when you get angry.”

“Used to,” Kurt reminded her gently, combing his hair and watching her in the mirror. “But that’s what the medicine is for. And that I’m taking for me, not for Blaine or anyone else. I want to be better remember? Blaine isn’t going to break my heart and even if he did I’d never throw away my one chance at having my life back because some man couldn’t see what was right in front of him.”

“You seem so sure he isn’t going to hurt you.” Brittany sounded almost envious of that and Kurt thought he knew why. “He’s got a boyfriend, I see them on the TV together. How can you be so sure that he’s going to choose you in the end?”

Spraying his hair with the miniature can of spray- a lifesaving contraband gift from Brittany- Kurt eyed himself critically for a moment and then accepted that he’d done the best that he could with his limited resources. Turning from the mirror he headed to his bedside table, patting Brittany’s back comfortingly as he passed her.

“Sometimes you just know Britt,” he murmured, eyes resting on the bright blue flowers on the table by his bed. Still his second favourite after all these years, every birthday and holiday that passed a small pot of them had arrived without so much as a tag to hint at their sender. Kurt brushed his fingers over their soft petals, felt their warmth and silkiness and remembered transferring each bushel to the large pot as they whispered their stories to him. He knew the hands that had picked them, potted them, carried them to Arkham and left them without so much as a word.

“But how do you know if you really know?” She asked. “What if you feel it, and you think they feel it, but then they do things that really just make you feel like everyone’s right and you’ve just been stupid. What if you’re making it all up?”

“Do you know what these are?” He asked and Brittany bounced up from the chair with a fond look of exasperation. This was a familiar lesson and Kurt tended to go on about his plants if you got him going but she always indulged him.

“Cape Forget Me Nots, the blue angel, Kurtie’s second most favourite flower.” She ticked off on her fingers leaning over his shoulder to watch him handle the plants. “Second because the one you helped make yourself is always going to be first.”

“Don’t call me Kurtie,” he scolded without any venom. She only did it to get a rise out of him in the first place, Santana- who labored under the delusion that she was hilarious- had given her the idea and Britt thought it was cute. “But you’re correct. They also symbolize true love.” He plucked one and leaned back to weave the stem through her golden hair. “Some things the heart knows and can’t forget, no matter what you or anyone else might have to say about it. That can make love a pretty crazy business…”

Brittany touched the blossom woven above her ear and smiled at it, the sadness and uncertainty leaking away to be replaced by a familiar look of confidence and optimism.

“But you don’t get anything good without some risk,” Brittany finished for him grabbing his shoulders lightly and kissing his cheek. “Thanks Kurtie.”

“Ugh. Remind me to kill Santana for getting you started on that.”

“You don’t mind,” Brittany flounced towards the door and fished in her pocket for her key card. “And you can’t kill another patient Kurt or you’ll be stuck here forever and won’t be able to help your Mowglies.” Brittany had heard all about the Awa’s and when Kurt had begun to cover his journals with pictures and old newspaper clippings (brought from his apartment courtesy of his family) she’d taken one look at them and declared them all Mowgli. That was Britt, one minute spouting the periodic table from memory the next equating an entire people group to a children’s book character.

“Unfortunately,” he allowed as he followed her from the room. “Though god knows that sharp tongued she devil would deserve it if I did.”

Santana Lopez wasn’t like Kurt. She wasn’t at Arkham on a temporary basis. She was certifiably insane, none of the others knew for sure- the story always changed (and dramatically so) with her- but Kurt was fairly certain she’d killed her family when she was only sixteen years old. She’d been in the system since then, formerly a patient of the psych ward in Westerville until a doctor had died and an investigation had revealed the place to be corrupted and all manner of unlawful abuse being heaped upon the patients. Santana and a few others had been transferred to Arkham and she’d been there ever since.

Santana was at the very least unsettling but Kurt happily threw in words like diabolical, blood thirsty, and unhinged whenever anyone brought the subject of her up. That happened more and more often now that Brittany had decided that Santana was just another misguided soul in need of a friend.

“Don’t be mean Kurt, you know she’s only kidding.” Brittany pleaded. “She pokes fun at other people because she’d go crazy in here if she couldn’t laugh at something.”

“We’re in an asylum Britt, everyone here is already crazy, Santana Lopez craziest of them all,” Kurt deadpanned and at Brittany’s pout he rolled his eyes. “But who am I to judge, I mean as long as she makes you smile then I guess it doesn’t matter that she once hid razor blades in her hair and killed her doctor with them.”

“Exactly,” Brittany completely missed his sarcasm. “And I asked her about that. She said that doctor in Westerville wasn’t a good man. He wanted her to be miserable, as miserable as he was, and she thought he’d be happier out of his misery.”

“And the fact that she took it upon herself to end his miserable existence by carving up his face doesn’t bother you at all?”

“Santana doesn’t always do good things. That’s true,” Brittany admitted, not seeming as pressed about that fact as Kurt would have liked. “But neither do you Kurt, and you don’t bother me. Do you want me to be bothered by you?”

Kurt worried about Brittany getting so close to Santana, not because he believed that Santana would snap on her the way she did others- no Santana seemed no more immune to Brittany’s unique brand of kindness than Kurt himself was- it was just that Kurt _had_ done some ‘not so good’ things himself. He knew what it was to be dangerous and so he recognized true danger when he saw it. But he could hardly warn Brittany away from Santana when he wasn’t any less dangerous himself.

“No, I don’t want that.” He squeezed her arm. “I just wish for your sake you’d be a lot more careful choosing your friends.”  

A/N: Can anyone guess which villain Santana is set up to be?  You'll meet her next chapter where it should become fairly obvious but if you've picked up on it now I give you nerd props.


	14. Chapter 14

“So I hear you’re blowing this popsicle stand.” Kurt looked up to find Santana Lopez sitting on his bed, the sound of the door clicking shut still lingering in the silence as she stared at him blank faced. It didn’t surprise him at all to find her there. He’d been expecting it sooner or later and it wasn’t hard to figure out that Britt helped sneak her in.

“Yes my hearing went well,” he answered. “I’m a free man.”

Santana’s mouth spread into a wide grin but her eyes remained strangely blank. She began to chuckle lowly, then louder as her whole face twisted with barely controlled mirth, like if his freedom were the biggest joke she’d ever heard. Kurt didn’t let it bother him. He’d learned to stop letting Santana bother him back in the a long time ago. She enjoyed it too much.

“Oh come on Hummel, don’t be such a stick. Ask me what the joke is.”She dared him with her blank eyes and challenging grin, but Kurt wasn’t going to play her game, not when the stakes were so high.

“I don’t have time for this Santana,” he informed her, setting about to grab the suitcases he’d packed that morning. The verdict had been almost certain from the beginning and he didn’t want to spend a second longer in this hell hole than he needed to. “My family is coming to help me get my things. So it’s been real but-“

Something sharp stuck him in his back and Kurt stiffened. Santana had risen from the bed so swiftly and silently he hadn’t even heard her. He kicked himself for relaxing his guard around her and held completely still. She was laughing quietly in his ear and he couldn’t repress a shudder when she brought the scissors he used for pruning up against his throat.

“This is a real sad sack of a story don’t you think Hummel?” She purred against his ear. “A little boy and a little girl, both of them swallowed up and spit back out by monsters. So they start to think the world is full of them and the only way to survive it…” she pressed the sharp end of one of the blades harder against his throat. “…. Is to become one yourself.”

She cut a thin line across his throat and he hissed at the sharp sting.

“So they put them in a cage and promised the boy if he was good they’d let him out to play. You know what happens to good boys and girls Hummel? They get fucked. I’ll cut that baby soft little throat and they’ll say ‘Santana what a monstrous thing you did’. They’ll up my meds or some shit and you’ll just be good and dead won’t you,” She cooed. “You know how to stop me don’t you?”

Fury at his predicament overrode good sense. He’d come this far, he was so close to getting his life back and making it all right again. Santana Lopez wasn’t ruining it for him. No one was!

Without warning something in the room that wasn’t either of them moved and Santana jerked in surprise as a long vine of ivy coiled itself tightly around her wrist. Luckily the plant was also pulling her wrist back or she might have cut his throat again. With her one hand immobile Kurt moved out of her grasp and quickly the pots of ivy he kept on his sill moved again, vines shooting out to entangle her remaining limbs.

Santana threw back her head and laughed as Kurt plucked the scissors from her hand and the vines retracted. The pull of the plants suddenly gone she stumbled backward until the edge of his dresser stopped her. She slumped against it, laughing so hard she shook.

“They think they’re safe. They open the cage and let a monster free because he’s fucking a pretty boy. They all want a love story to believe in so they’ll ignore the obvious now; but when the monster starts to gobble them up?  They’ll call their batman to clean up the mess and you’ll be right back here with Auntie Tana and the rest of the world’s little monsters. That’s the joke.”

Kurt eyed her where she stood looking mad as a hatter slumped against his dresser, her body shaking with barely suppressed hysterics. Rather than find her frightening in that moment he felt nothing but pity for her. She was jealous. She wanted her freedom as much as he did. She was trying to get to him, hurt him with the knowledge that he’d never really belong out there again and that sooner or later people would figure it out. The world didn’t like dangerous things, at least the ones they couldn’t control.

He chuckled darkly and crossed to the other side of the room, searching his bedside table for the handkerchief he’d left there. She looked up at him, her head cocked curiously as she watched him wipe away the blood from the shallow cut on his throat. Once most of it was gone he picked up the scissors again and crossed the room to stand in front of her. He lifted her arm and opened her palm, placing them back in her hands.

“Don’t be a stick Santana,” he echoed her words from earlier. “Ask me what the joke is.”

“This is my favorite game.” She smiled, her eyes filled with cold fire. “What’s the joke Ivy?”

Grinning Kurt leaned close until it was his lips just inches from her ear and whispered, “He’s my batman. Not theirs.”

They were smiling at each other when they heard the click of the door unlocking.

 ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Blaine watched Kurt tighten the scarf around his neck, hiding the fresh cuts from the cameras that were waiting outside the steps of Arkham. Blaine had known that Kurt’s hearing would be a media frenzy. Not only because the anniversary of the tragedy that had sentenced him to rehabilitation at the asylum in the first place was nearing but because Kurt Hummel was Blaine Anderson’s childhood best friend turned tragic lover and their reunion was sure to sell.

He’d sent a driver around to pick up Burt and Carole for the hearing and had offered to help transport Kurt home. Burt hadn’t wanted to accept the offer (because Blaine was the one offering) but he’d agreed when Blaine explained how chaotic things were going to be and how potential dangerous it might get with a worked up mob who could either love or hate the fact that Kurt was being released.

Feeling his gaze Kurt looked up and flashed him an encouraging smile.

“It doesn’t hurt Blaine.”

“I just can’t believe the security here let another patient attack you,” he grumbled watching Carole direct the driver with Kurt’s suitcases. There were several men in black suits waiting by the door to escort them to their cars. Blaine nodded to them both before turning back to Kurt who was smoothing the wrinkles out of his shirt and smiling fondly at him. “You’re finally free of this place and we walk in to some lunatic trying to cut your throat.”

“Not quite yet,” Kurt murmured. “I won’t feel free until I walk out that door.” As the last of Kurt’s things passed them on its way out Blaine saw the nervous way Kurt played with the top button of his shirt and he reached for his hand.

“Shall we walk through them then?” He offered and Kurt ‘s nerves melted away. He smiled at Blaine again, unfairly lovely as he took his hand and laced their fingers together.

“God yes let’s.”

And so they did.

FLASH. Sudden blindness was followed by unpleasant stinging and the roar of a hundred voice’s shouting at once. FLASH FLASH FLASH. CLAP CLAP CLAP.

_Kurt! Kurt look this way!_

“This is nuts,” Kurt shouted close to his ear and Blaine nodded, his hired suits rushing them along and keeping the crowd from pressing in. They were through the crowd and ushered into the back seat of Blaine’s black jag before Blaine could reply. Letting out a breath of relief Blaine reached for Kurt’s hand to help him in as he hurried in after him.

“Welcome to notoriety?” Blaine said with a flash of a grin and Kurt laughed.

There were still cameras flashing even as Jared shut the door behind Kurt and Kurt stared at the crowd of reporters and spectators outside the window with something like trepidation.

“It won’t always be like that will it?” He asked as the car slowly pulled away and Blaine hated to disappoint him but he couldn’t see a way around it.

“Probably,” he answered with a reassuring squeeze of Kurt’s hand. “At least they’re cheering.”

“Better you be their tragic hero than their Super Villain?” Kurt teased and Blaine chuckled.

“Something like that.”

“I don’t know. Being a super villain might be fun. You’d get to be as wicked as you chose.” When Blaine just grinned and dropped his head Kurt poked him in the side. “Don’t pretend you don’t believe I could be wicked. I’m still holding your hand aren’t I? What would Joshua say?”

Joshua. Blaine blinked at the name as if someone had dumped water over his head. Joshua: the man he was dating, who was already anxious about meeting the famous Kurt Hummel and competing with everything he represented.

“Honestly, Josh isn’t the subtle type. I wouldn’t put it past him to pull you aside to tell you like it is,” Blaine kept his voice lighthearted but he withdrew his hand from Kurt’s nonetheless and he knew without a doubt that Kurt took note of it. Blaine waited but Kurt didn’t remark on it.

“Oh?” he asked instead, appearing intrigued by the possibility of awkward confrontations with his current boyfriend. “You think he’d warn me off you?”

“With charm,” Blaine smiled ruefully. “That’s sort of why we’ve worked out so long. He loves my personality and my money more. He’s not intimidated by competition; he knows how this game is played.” He didn’t really want to be talking about this with Kurt but he didn’t see a way around it as long as they were friends. He knew what Kurt wanted and even if he’d promised not to wait around this time Blaine felt he owed it to them both to always keep the lines clear.

“Sounds perfect for Lima’s billionaire bachelor,” Kurt remarked, a bit of sardonic bite to his tone and Blaine shrugged.

“It’s why we work.”

“It’s sad, Blaine.” Kurt turned to look out the window, gazing at the trees that lined the street as the passed by. “Don’t you ever get tired of being sad?”

“I’m not sad now,” he confessed, reaching to touch Kurt’s shoulder until he turned to look at him again. Today was a good day, today he was free and Blaine would walk away for good before he brought Kurt down on this day of all days. “I couldn’t be sad today and you certainly shouldn’t be.”

“I’m not,” Kurt assured him with a soft smile. “I can’t wait to meet Josh.”

“Do you mean that?” It sort of surprised him how genuine Kurt sounded. Necessary or not he wasn’t looking forward to meeting any of Kurt’s future boyfriends.

“Of course I do,” Kurt looked offended by the question. “He’s part of your life isn’t he? If he’s important to you Blaine I want to talk with him, tell him how it is.”

“I feel like I should be worried,” Blaine responded, only half teasing. He was truthfully unsure just what Kurt meant by that. He was almost certain he meant that he’d reassure Josh that they had no intention of rekindling their romance, but something about the glint in his eye made him pause.

Chuckling at him Kurt winked playfully and said, “Don’t you worry about a thing, Beautiful. I’ll set the record straight.”

They spent the rest of the drive in relative but comfortable silence, but every now and again Kurt would bite his lip nervously and clench his arms. Finally Blaine asked him what was wrong.

“I guess I’m still waiting for the catch,” Kurt admitted quietly. “I didn’t really believe I’d ever be free again. I wanted it. I promised myself I’d make it happen but I guess…. When you’re lying there in the dark it’s hard to believe it will ever be true. It’s hard to believe in anything.”

How many nights had Kurt lain alone thinking that the rest of his life would be spent just like that, trapped in an asylum separated from everything and everyone he’d ever loved and not even in control of his own mind? The man in front of him, the confident beautiful one who was struggling to admit that inside he was still terrified, he was incredible. Sometimes what made Kurt incredible hit Blaine hard in the chest and knocked the breath out of his lungs.

“But you did make it happen Kurt,” somehow Blaine found himself holding Kurt’s hand again. “You’re safe now, you’re free and you’ll never go back to that place again.”

“I won’t,” Kurt agreed vehemently, as if Blaine were arguing with him. “Do you hear me? I can’t, Blaine I really can’t. You’ll have to kill me before I let you put me back there!” His voice had begun to shake more with each word getting harder and harder to get out.

“Stop it, don’t say that! Come here.” Blaine pulled him close, rubbing warmth into his arms and Kurt clung to him. “Kurt I could never!”

Kill him? Thinking about it made him feel sick. His arms tightened around Kurt and the other man breathed deep and laid his head against Blaine’s chest, grounding himself in the solidity of his body and the steady rise and fall of his chest with each breath.

“I’m sorry,” Kurt mumbled against his shirt, but he made no motion to move and Blaine was glad for that. Kurt had been imprisoned for three years and the thing about that was that it didn’t just mean that for three years Kurt had no one but his own demons and the emptiness of a blank room; it meant that the people who loved him had nothing but the holes in their lives where he’d once stood. It meant that they imagined the horror of his new life and had no way to comfort and no action to take if even half of their imaginings were true. Blaine needed to hold Kurt just then as Kurt needed to be held.

“Don’t be,” was all he said.

~*~*~ Six Days After Kurt’s Release ~*~*~*~

The first couple of days as a free man Kurt was glad to spend with his family. The trouble was getting away from them for a moment of peace. Carole hovered like a mother hen and when she wasn’t fussing his dad was there looking so happy to have him home and so desperate to just enjoy his being _there_ that Kurt didn’t have the heart to send him away. Even Finn found more reasons to stop by their parents’ house than Kurt ever remembered him having before and he come over for dinner every night and stayed for long hours.

Puck was over a lot too because he’d been set to patrol and make sure the reporters who were still hungry for a scoop didn’t harass them or break any laws in their zeal for a good story. Surprise of all surprises he even saw a lot of Rachel, who had apparently approached Finn after the trial to offer her condolences. Burt had explained they’d been on again off again ever since and rolled his eyes at the obviously love sick couple. It was nice to catch up with his family but it was bittersweet too. They had changed so much in the three years he’d been locked away, everything had, and he couldn’t escape that he no longer fit in with them anymore.

They loved him and were glad to have him back, he wasn’t stupid, but nevertheless their lives had moved on without him. By day four he was itching to speed up the process of finding a new apartment and moving his stuff out of storage into a place he could call his. He was also tired of ‘resting’ and began to throw himself into the project of stopping Nyteck from leveling the land the Awa tribe called home.

By day six he was frustrated. All of his old colleagues and investors were singing the same tune.

_“It’s good to hear from you Kurt, it really is, but we’ve exhausted our resources as it is… and maybe you shouldn’t stress yourself over this. There’s time. We can reconvene in a year when things have settled…”_

Just when he was frustrated enough to put his head through a wall Blaine had called and invited him to lunch at the manor and he’d promptly agreed because he desperately needed the distraction. He had a bit of a time convincing Carole he’d be fine out on his own and then he was off breathing the first free breath he’d had in days.

When Luis answered the door the first thing the stately butler did was remark on his haggard look. Kurt felt an unexpected rush of fondness for the old man.

“Being treated like any second you’re going to slip into a psychotic meltdown is enough to drive a person crazy,” he commented as Luis ushered him inside and he saw the butler grin.

“I can imagine Mr. Hummel. The staff and I would be pleased if you resisted from breaking any of the china should you decide to humor the masses.”

“Oh thank god, no kid gloves.  I’ve missed you Lou,” he laughed pulling the reedy old man into a hug. For a moment Luis just stood tall and straight as he always did but then with a soft chuckle of his own he patted the younger man gently on the back.

“Things are never quite the same without you around Mr. Hummel. Master Blaine gets so dreadfully moody, he hardly notices if we haven’t dusted and won’t eat what’s put in front of him.” Luis said as Kurt pulled away from the hug. “You understand how that tempts my staff to be lazy? Yes it’s best all-around if you commit not to leaving us again.”

“We both know you rule your staff with an iron fist Luis,” Kurt rolled his eyes at the butler’s melodrama. “And from what I hear Blaine’s found someone who keeps him happy enough.”

“Has he? I wasn’t aware.” Luis retorted as he guided him towards the back door that lead to the Veranda. “He is however seeing a Mr. Joshua LaTren. You should know, he dropped in a bit ago and invited himself to lunch.”

“What do you think of him, Luis?” Kurt asked, peering through the glass doors and catching sight of Blaine sitting with a man with a wavy head of dirty blond hair. He was polished an put together looking like he’d stepped right off of a GQ  cover and Kurt was not all that impressed by the hungry way he was staring at Blaine.

“This one’s not as silly as the others.” Luis responded. “He thinks he knows who Blaine Anderson is and he’s closer than the rest, I’ll give him that. He’ll never complain about the long hours or the nights away and all of the secrets he can sense buzzing around him. He’s used to important men with secrets.”

Through the door they watched as the handsome blond man laughed at something Blaine said and leaned down to press a soft kiss against his temple. “Do you think he loves him?” Kurt asked, something cold creeping into his chest.

“I think Mr. LaTren is tired of the game and wants security. He knows what Blaine will give him and for him it’s enough. They do get on well together,” Luis mused. Watching the two the old man nodded slowly. “In his way I believe he does.”

Outside Blaine joined hands with Joshua kissing the back of the other man’s palm in an old world gesture that somehow fit with the garden behind them and the man delivering it. Blaine’s gaze wandered to the garden and other distant places and Joshua LaTren’s gaze stayed on him and told Kurt everything he needed to know.

“How unfortunate for Mr. LaTren,” Kurt responded with a tsk. He smiled and pushed open the doors, the large pots of plants on either side of them stirring as the gentle summer breeze swept by.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the all I have written of this fic and all I plan to have written for the unforseable future. There are two asides that I've written that both take place in "alternate realities" because what's a batman fic without a few AU's. If you're dying for closure and desperate to know how things would have ended, I suggest reading Things Remembered.


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